


Leap Year

by astrosaur



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up, Top Richie Tozier, mentions of Richie and Eddie's other relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrosaur/pseuds/astrosaur
Summary: Richie is the One That Got Away, and Eddie is the One That Had to Let Him Go. They meet again during their 25th high school reunion.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 27
Kudos: 162





	1. Summer 2019

One foot into the ten-mile radius surrounding Derry High School and Eddie can feel the warning vibes pulsing out from its perimeter. The air crackles with an eerie, oppressive energy, heavy with ghosts of misspent innocence.

There’s even something ominous about the signage beckoning him:

_WELCOME BACK_  
_Derry High School_  
_Class of 1994_

Against his better judgment, Eddie feeds himself to the jaws of the Hellmouth.

It’s as horrific as expected. Magnified yearbook portraits line the halls. Oasis warbles through the PA system on loop. Silver balloons shaped in 9’s and 4’s litter the stadium.

The August humidity works in tandem with Eddie’s anxiety to make his polo stick to his back. He ploughs through throngs of faces that range from barely familiar to completely alien, dodging curious stares from eyes that reliably failed to notice him before.

With each step, he suffers through niceties being flung at him. He arranges his features into a civil expression for every observation that he looks _exactly the same as he did in high school_ and that it’s _so good to see him_ , _oh my god_! Only halfway through and already he yearns for the exit.

One asshole deigns to ask him about a certain someone’s whereabouts, and just like that, bubbling lava seeps into his vision. Luckily, before the crimson fog colonizes his mindspace, he feels a hand wrap around his arm. “Eddie! Eddie, it’s really you!”

Eddie whips around. His elbow is still held captive by the man with the achingly familiar voice, roughened slightly in the years they’ve spent apart.

He propels himself forward, throwing his free limb around his well-intentioned captor. When he echoes his former classmates – “it’s so good to see you again” – he means it with every fiber of his being. He burrows into the past and present safety that make up Mike’s arms.

Before Eddie can study the changes in Mike’s face, he is handed off into another embrace. “I believe you’ve met my date,” another voice filters through.

“Bev!” Eddie and Beverly race to wrap themselves around each other, rocking as one unit and rotating in place. “‘Date’? You mean Mike?”

Beverly rears back, catching Eddie’s curious look. “You haven’t heard about me and Mike?”

“No? What- wait, really? When did that happen?”

Beverly glances over her shoulder without relinquishing Eddie. “When did I slip into your DM’s, babe?”

“I believe it was three, four months ago now?” Mike answers.

Beverly pats Eddie’s cheek lightly. “Don’t look so surprised. Look at him. Can you blame me?”

“I’d be a fool to reject the one and only Beverly Marsh,” Mike seconds.

Eddie bumbles for a response beyond impersonating an animatronic twitching valiantly through its final seconds of functionality. Eventually, Beverly takes mercy on him. “I asked him if he wanted to be my plus one so we could smuggle him in. No point in reuniting the Losers without Mike, is there?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s great thinking. Damn, I wish I thought of that,” Eddie says sincerely. A fake date might’ve deterred the gossip ogres from bringing up his ex to his face, if nothing else.

“Who knew I’d have a line of pretend suitors out my door in my 40’s,” Mike muses.

Beverly threads her fingers through Eddie’s and Mike’s, towing one man in each hand. “Let’s go make sure Bill and Audra aren’t third-wheeling my other date.”

-

“Bill, Audra! Oh, shit, Ben!” Eddie latches on to Ben in a tenth of a second the moment he notices him. “Ben, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Eddie! Yeah, it’s been too long. Way too long.” Ben scoops him up, warm and all-encompassing.

When Beverly reclaims Ben with a kiss to his cheek, Eddie raises a cautious eyebrow at them.

“This one is real.” Beverly’s genuine contentment is loud and clear in her soft answer.

It warrants another hug, and an equally sincere congratulations murmured between them.

They waste no time catching him up on what he’s missed – Mike’s life as an adjunct professor in Massachusetts, Ben’s architecture firm in Nebraska, Beverly’s time halved between her and Ben’s Nebraska home and her business’ headquarters in New York.

Eddie learns that Beverly and Ben had reconnected after their tenth anniversary reunion, “which none of you went to, by the way,” she calls them out.

“I didn’t know anyone was going to that,” Bill says.

“We talked about it at Stan’s wedding!”

“Stan got married in college,” Mike points out. “None of us had our heads together then. We were running on Josta and negative hours of sleep.”

Eddie gags at the memory. “I cannot believe how much of that shit you guys drank.”

“And I can’t believe Ben and I are the only two people who can keep a promise without blaming it on discontinued energy drinks,” Beverly says.

“I honestly forgot. And I wouldn’t have been able to come, anyway. 2004, I would’ve been scrambling to finish my manuscript that year,” Bill says in his defense.

 _I was scared of who might show up._ “I didn’t get an invite,” Eddie chooses to say.

Before Beverly’s shrewd glance can settle on Eddie, Mike chimes in coyly, “Me neither.”

“I haven’t been to any of my reunions,” Audra admits. “Let’s just say I don’t have much reason to.”

“Uh, ouch?” Bill says.

“What, you want me to go to a reunion to show you off? Please don’t be offended that I’m neither from the fifties nor a WAG,” Audra teases. “I just don’t have the same ties to high school that you guys do. Although seeing you all together, you make me wish that I hadn’t lost touch with my friends immediately after graduation.”

Eddie looks around at his friends. No one dares to contradict Audra’s assumption that their narrative had played out much differently.

“Personally, I’m very pleased with my decision to attend the last reunion.” Ben throws Beverly an adoring gaze that he’d preserved flawlessly from their youth.

Beverly returns it, rivaling his open affection.

“Yes, the last reunion made Ben’s wildest dreams come true, but did it have silver balloons reminding you when high school ended for us?” Eddie gestures to the field décor with a flourish.

“Or these sad-looking… what are these?” Bill points at the centerpiece. “Audra, don’t we have these in the garden? These little, um. Daffodils?” he guesses. He checks Audra’s face, lips bitten to stifle her amusement. “Not even close, am I?”

“They’re yarrow. They bloom in the summer,” Audra says. “They’re also called Achillea, after Achilles.”

“That’s the plant Achilles used to heal his soldiers’ wounds,” Mike informs them. “It stanches bleeding.”

“Between Mike storing the whole library catalog of historic literature in his head and Eddie’s encyclopedic knowledge of illnesses, it’s a wonder we didn’t place first on trivia night. Remember? That time Ben and I visited you guys in Boston?” Bill reminisces.

“Richie got us pretty far with those useless facts he retains.” Ben glances quickly at Eddie then races to bury his own sentence. “I wasn’t much help. There were so many baseball and football questions, and there’s only so much TV you can watch as an architecture major.”

“Would you say you dropped the ball on that?” Beverly slides in with a smooth assist.

“Unless there’s something you want to tell us, Bev, it’s too soon for you to be making dad jokes,” Mike says.

“Has anyone heard from him recently?” Eddie interjects before Bill can join in on their game of keep-away-from-touchy-subjects.

The table falls into a hush. “I bump into him now and then,” Bill responds after a painful stretch of thumb-twiddling. “He needed help finding an editor.”

“He’s working with your editor? What for? Don’t tell me he’s writing a fucking memoir.”

Eddie’s relatively harmless question ushers in another round of wary restraint, four sets of cautious eyes trained on him.

“What’s a bunch of losers like you doing in a place like this?” a voice rasps out from behind him.

Eddie takes a second to wonder how dramatic he’d seem if he tore that miracle healing plant out from its vase and smush its petals all over his chest.

Unfortunately, binge-watching that sitcom Richie was in a couple of years ago did little to prepare Eddie for this moment. Richie, live and in-person, lumbering towards him as if he’s got a homing device.

For better or worse, Richie looks like he might make a play for physical contact. Eddie’s body is certainly convinced, heart trudging along more-or-less per usual in one minute, then rampaging in the next.

Eddie devours an inhale and doesn’t move when Richie reaches out to him and… cradles his face in one broad hand. Fingertips dig into Eddie’s cheeks, making his lips jut out in a fishlike fashion.

Eddie ponders the age-old question: what the fuck is wrong with this guy.

“Are you planning on doing this for much longer?” Eddie hopes to ask, comprehensibility impeded by Richie’s facial groping.

Richie lets go eventually, but instead of backing out of Eddie’s personal space, he steps further into it and envelops him in a tight hug.

Really, what the actual fuck is his damage.

Before today, Eddie had already seen the way Richie filled out, outgrowing the lankiness that followed him into their early adulthood. But it’s the first time Eddie’s mapping it out with his hands, acquiring evidence of it through touch.

He despises these needlessly All-American-footballer shoulders and how they branch down into these needlessly All-American-footballer arms. It’s just so _unnecessary._ Richie’s most significant athletic achievement was schooling Bill and Mike on Nintendo’s Tecmo Super Bowl that one time. What does he need these for?

Richie’s skin is right beneath Eddie’s mouth, close enough to rip into with his teeth. Eddie controls his bloodthirst, but there’s no stopping him from nosing into Richie’s sturdy neck. Eddie takes him in, reacquaints himself with the sensation of being possessed by an unambiguous scent, so powerful he swears it’s on his tongue.

-

In retrospect, Eddie’s first guess about Richie’s hunt for an editor should have involved a script of some sort.

“It’s a step up above a pipe dream at this point, at best,” Richie’s saying. “Bit of a hard sell.” He’s referring to the part that Eddie would’ve never predicted: his project aspires to headline the first (mainstream) bisexual animated superhero.

“It’s great that you can branch out from radio and voice work,” Ben says. Ben and Mike never made it a secret that they sought out news about Richie after he’d left. Eddie suspects that the others did, too.

“I’ve always known what my demographic was. Adults are useless. No one listens to you anymore unless you’re a conservative blowhard or in NPR.”

“Aren’t you still on that NPR panel show?”

Richie shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’d be surprised if the producers knew. They have yet to cotton on to the fact that ‘semi-regular’ is an oxymoron.”

“What about stand-up?” Mike asks. “Do you still do that?”

“Haven’t kicked that habit totally. I do it when I can afford to pay off comedy clubs to let me run my mouth for half an hour.”

“There’s something reassuring about you still chugging along out there, polluting the planet with the first thought that comes to your mind.”

“Yeah, not all of us folds like a cheap accordion when things don’t go perfectly according to plan.”

Eddie tamps down the knee-jerk response somehow. It’s hard not to snipe back at criticism that’s leveled so pointedly at you.

“Jesus, Richie,” Bill mutters, but says nothing further on the matter.

“What?” Richie’s drawl is lathered in affected innocence.

Bill shakes his head.

“No, tell me. What is it?” Richie mimes clutching at phantom pearls. “Did I say something unfit for our audience’s delicate sensibilities? Prithee, impart upon us your infinite wisdom, Bill-sensei, that we too may pursue the same path of virtuosity.”

Beverly attempts to lighten the mood. “Just don’t go to Bill-sensei for advice on writing endings.”

Bill volleys that with half-feigned offense. “This is what we’ve come to, now that you’re too old to make fun of my stutter?”

“Bill, we love you, but it’s not a good look when there’s a petition to sell your book with the last four pages torn out,” Mike says.

“Please tell me that’s real,” Beverly chortles.

“It had over 5,000 signatures last I checked. I was number 5,068.”

“Yeah, Bill’s never had a knack for having the outcome in mind,” Richie says. “For that, I’d have to learn a thing from Eddie. Can’t deny that the man’s talented at bringing things to an end.”

Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Eddie doesn’t have the discipline to keep from lashing back the second time Richie comes after him. “Do you ever fucking stop.”

“It’s a joke, buddy.”

“Shouldn’t you have funny ones by now?”

Richie recoils at that. “Oh, you didn’t like that one? That’s fine, I’ve got another. Knock knock. Who’s there? Interrupting cow that encouraged his boyfriend to follow his dreams, then immediately dumped his boyfriend’s ass when his boyfriend listened to him. Interrupting cow that encouraged his boyfriend—”

“I couldn’t leave and you couldn’t stay. There was no way around that.” Eddie grinds his teeth, but the next words still topple out his throat. “I thought you were going to come back.”

“I did!” Richie retorts. “And I came back to you, fucking white picket fence, 2.5 kids deep with Jebediah, Gerrymander, whoever-the-fuck.”

“Hey, guys? Maybe there’s a better time to hash this out,” Ben tries.

Eddie takes no pleasure in disappointing Ben, but he does it anyway. “You’re mad about Jeremiah? The guy I dated ten fucking years after you left?”

Eddie’s tirade comes to a screeching halt when he hears a squeak from right around his knees. “Uncle Eddie?”

Eddie’s heart stops when he glances down at the tiny human tugging at him. She has a handful of his jeans in her grasp and an inquisitive stare. She tilts her head, making the curling ends of her pigtails bob, and her face teeters on familiar despite Eddie’s certainty that he’s never seen her before.

“Guys, meet Zelda. Zelda, meet my friends.”

“Stan,” Richie exhales, thoroughly impressed.

Beverly smirks and waves her hand in Richie’s general direction. “Is that face because Stan and Patty made another human or because Stan’s daughter is named after his favorite video game?”

Richie leaves that unanswered.

-

Eddie’s never been so grateful for Stan hoovering up Richie’s attention for himself. Richie gets caught up sopping up whatever he can of Stan, Patty and Zelda. Loses himself in it long enough for the group to collectively to nudge the mask of normalcy back in place.

By the time Sally Mueller takes to the stands with a megaphone, threatening her former classmates with a “fun little program”, Richie takes it as their cue to disappear.

Beverly comes up with an irresistible suggestion – how about a visit to the site of their old clubhouse, she suggests. She sweetens the pot by giving them a glimpse of her voluminous bag, perfectly sized to hold the alcohol she’d pilfered from the banquet table.

Patty takes Zelda back to their hotel with Audra in tow, giving the childhood friends time to themselves. Bill and Stan ride with Eddie and Richie, respectively, en route to a spot that Eddie somehow remembers the way to. It’s embedded in his brain, in the same way that he can still recite his friends’ landline numbers, or how he can sing the song that had been playing on the radio when Maggie Tozier picked him up for his first date with Richie.

A bout of summer rain greets them upon arrival at the clubhouse, a bit too strong to be classified as a drizzle. It has them scaling down the rickety ladder into their hideout more recklessly than they otherwise would.

Unnerved and damp, Eddie doesn’t think twice about accepting Richie’s help as he hops down from the final rung of the ladder and onto safer ground.

Eddie resolves not to make things weird when he notices what he’d done. He moves to extract himself unhurriedly, to thank Richie in the most boringly normal manner ever employed in human correspondence.

His heightened discretion is intercepted when his stare catches on a droplet that travels along the fuzz on Richie’s neck down to his collarbone.

Eddie’s breathing abbreviates when he starts to think of Richie caught in the rain. _This_ Richie, with _these_ arms, _this_ torso. Precipitation dousing his shirt and making it cling to him in a way that his fashion sense wouldn’t allow for.

He notices Richie’s eyes waver downwards the slightest bit, stranded in Eddie’s parted mouth.

“It’s like an underground time capsule,” Beverly whispers. She may as well have bellowed into the night for the startled jolts that Eddie and Richie take to fashion more distance between them.

“Aren’t they all underground?” Ben says.

“That’s my man, beauty _and_ brains.”

The seven childhood friends wander their old stomping grounds. It’s smaller than Eddie remembers. The impending claustrophobia takes up more space than their bodies do.

They unearth their veteran treasures – board games, books, bags of marbles, View-Master disks. Their dust-encrusted communal belongings are strewn across the humble corner of the earth they once held as their own.

Richie has a minor fit when he digs out a shoebox of his cassette tapes. In his early teens, he found endless gratification in laboring over them, pretending to be the DJ and creating his own Top 40 lists. He’d record himself introducing songs that he plucked from the radio with his mom’s tape recorder.

“Trashmouth Records,” Mike and his elephantine memory recall.

“You’ve done well for yourself since then,” Ben says.

“I fucking had to. Had to make it worth—” It’s only a split-second hesitation, but Eddie picks up on Richie switching gears midway through his sentence. “—all that saliva I used up kissing all those director’s asses.”

Over Beverly’s shoulder, Eddie spots one tape that doesn’t belong in the shoebox. He makes a grab for it – to pocket it for safekeeping or smash it to smithereens, he hasn’t decided – but Richie swipes it before he does.

“What’s this doing here?”

Eddie fixes his gaze to the right of Richie’s shoulder. “There wasn’t anywhere to store it in my house.”

“All that effort and it got discarded here with the rest of these fossils,” Richie scoffs. “Y’know, I broke my back with this one after Stan reamed me on mixtape criteria about fucking ‘themes’ and fucking ‘telling a story’ and ‘practicing an ounce of fucking subtlety’.”

“Don’t ask me for opinions if you can’t take them,” Stan advises.

“I’m sorry, what about _Leaving on a Jet Plane_ is subtle to you?” Eddie has to ask. “‘I’m leaving on a jet plane, I don’t know when I’ll be back again.’ That’s subtle?”

“I said an ounce,” Richie says. “I could’ve loaded this with Whitney Houston’s greatest hits and called it a day, but I didn’t.”

Eddie snorts. “I’m impressed you strayed as far as you did from Weird Al or Blink-182.”

Richie doesn’t take the cue to give Eddie shit about his own questionable musical prowess. He stays latched on to the topic of his abandoned mixtape. “At least you know what songs are on here. Did you even listen to it, or did you take one look at the tracklist and nope’d so hard that this materialized here.”

“I couldn’t keep it in my house because I couldn’t look at it without wanting to cry.” There, Eddie thinks vindictively. How do you like that?

In the silence that follows, Beverly, Mike, Stan, Ben, and Bill disperse, decisively exiting the situation.

Richie gains his bearings and deems to ask, “Do you think this still plays?”

“I don’t know. Why? Are you hiding a boombox somewhere?”

“—in my pants, or am I just happy to see you? Complete your sentences, Eds.” Richie stiffens at the exact same time Eddie does. They’re welcomed into each other’s open, terrified stares. Richie breaks it off by pulling out his phone. “Do we get signal down here?”

“I’ve got three bars.”

More wordless breaths pass between them as Richie tinkers with his phone. Then, the first few chords of heartbreaking strumming cascade into the space separating them. Richie sings along, a quiet accompaniment from the verse to the sledgehammer chorus: “‘So kiss me and smile for me.’” He doesn’t say the line after that, just looks at Eddie as it plays.

_Tell me that you'll wait for me. Hold me like you'll never let me go._

“This song is—” fucking awful, the absolute worst, so aggressively cheesy it’s offensive. Eddie wants nothing more than to drown out the crooning harmonies that assault his ears and his sense of self-preservation.

Richie takes a step closer and Eddie internally begs himself to do something. If it’s too much, too soon, to admit that he’d missed Richie, he can manage something a little less scary.

Like a harmless acknowledgement that they’re older now, maybe incrementally wiser. Or a suggestion that they’re no longer two dumb kids residing in their own fringes with no middle ground in between. Perhaps he’s no longer the boy that takes everything too seriously, and Richie’s no longer the boy that makes a joke out of everything.

But Eddie can’t bring himself to make that assumption. What proof does he have, besides a mounting heap of obsolete calendars?

A buzzing in Eddie’s hand intrudes on his spiraling reverie. “Fuck.” He wrestles down the routine nausea summoned by that contact name displayed on his phone. “I have to take this. It’s work.”

“Jebediah?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. He doesn’t even have Jeremiah’s number anymore. “No, this is the guy that fired Jeremiah, and he’s probably waiting on a reason to fire me next.”

-

Eddie takes the call crouched behind the hammock for a semblance of privacy. He has half a mind to climb up to the surface and flood this phone with rainwater, not caring if he’d have to drench himself as collateral damage.

His boss’s work emergency was something he laid out on a one-sheet document he sent out two weeks ago. Eddie performs semantic gymnastics to relay this information to Marty, when all he wants to do is forward that same email and bust out the passive-aggressive manifesto in boldface 72-point: **PER MY LAST EMAIL…**

Marty is attuned to Eddie’s moods by now, and he picks up on the thinly veiled frustration. “Eddie, I don’t want to be working over the weekend any more than you do.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. I’m sorry if I sound… weird. I’m not in the city and the signal’s spotty.”

“You’re not in the city?”

“No, I’m not.”

There’s an ellipsis where Marty expects him to elaborate. Eddie bites his lip.

“I didn’t know that,” Marty finally says. “Eddie, I want to us to maintain a transparent working relationship. I’ve been honest with you about the reason I gave you that work phone. As much as I wish I could, I don’t always work normal hours and I can’t take on each project singlehandedly.”

“Of course. I understand.”

“You have a very specialized skill set. You’ve got a hang of our proprietary platform. It’s hard to translate that into other companies, let alone other jobs. I want to make sure you see the unique position you’re in. Do you see, Eddie?”

Eddie forces out an affirmative-sounding response.

In the background, Eddie hears a cork bottle pop to the tune of his friends’ whoops and he prays that his microphone doesn’t transmit it. Maybe it’s irrational, but he’s discomforted by the notion of his boss gaining an insight on his life outside of work.

“Forgive me for preaching at you. It’s just that I’ve got this cousin, you see. He tried to switch careers about eight or so months ago, and he hasn’t cracked the market yet. It’s- I can’t think about it too long, honestly, it gets me too depressed. But I tried to tell him that. It’s not good enough to be great in New York. You’ve got to prove yourself indispensable.”

“…That’s rough for him. I feel for your cousin.”

“Yeah. I wish I could help him out, but we’ve got no openings right now. Not yet.”

Eddie offers an unfounded, half-hearted assurance that something will come up for his boss’s cousin, surely.

After he hangs up, Stan appears next to him, a brimming paper cup in each hand. He extends one towards Eddie. “Rations to get us through the night.”

“Probably not a good idea,” Eddie demurs.

Stan shrugs, too smart to disagree outright. “Neither of us is in charge of keeping a nine-year-old alive for the next couple of hours. We’ve got that going for us.”

“I can’t believe you’re a dad,” Eddie marvels, feeling a genuine smile bloom on his face. He wants to ask Stan why he hadn’t heard about Zelda before now, but he doesn’t know how to breach the subject without it sounding like an accusation. And while Eddie can’t be blamed for the gradual fracture in the group, he’s not blind to the fact that he had a disproportionate hand in it.

“I can’t believe it either,” Stan agrees, his own expression devoid of irony, for once. “I’m not a dad again until I get back to the hotel, though.”

Eddie laughs. “By all means, don’t hold back on my account.”

“I wasn’t planning to. You won’t be alone, either way. Ben’s chugging water and Bill doesn’t trust his decrepit kidneys. They’re going to end up babysitting the sloppy drunks, present company excepted.” Stan nudges one cup in Eddie’s direction once more. “Choose your side wisely.”

-

**Unknown Number**  
hey kaspbrK where u at  
cum claim ur prize on stage  
u won  
most likely to alil bitch  
lmfao  


**Unknown Number**  
its sally miller  
from school  


**Eddie**  
You mean Mueller?  
Richie ic an see what you’re texting.  
*I cam  
*CAN  


**Unknown Number**  
oooohhh someones slosheedddd 

-

They’re hunkered on the ground, facing each other in a circle. Eddie’s head is nestled against Beverly’s neck, nursing a growing throb in his temples. Apparently, advancing in age for him means that the peak of inebriation overlaps with the onset of the hangover.

Next to him, Richie’s wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, delighting in their jointly diminishing motor capacity. “When do you think Bill and Bev should have broken up?” he surveys the clubhouse.

“I exercise my veto power!” Bill calls out while the others throw out numbers as though they were in an auction. Beverly included.

They’ve been lobbing queries back and forth for a long, hazy while now. Depending on the interrogator, the questions have escalated in audacity (Richie, Eddie, Beverly, Mike, and Stan’s) and acumen (Bill, Ben, and Stan’s again).

Stan flexes his investigative muscles in his next turn. “Why did you lose touch with the group?”

It draws a hearty, wholehearted groan from Eddie, who is now tempted to counter with his own question about why he’d only met Zelda today. Eddie only holds back because that tactic will definitely backfire on him.

Richie leans past Eddie to wave his near-empty cup in the direction of their dwindling alcohol supply. “I’m too far from blacked-out to deal with Stan’s shit-stirring.”

Beverly glances at Richie’s anticipatory rattling of his cup, unimpressed. “What are you trying to accomplish there, Professor X? Gonna use the Force to pour yourself a glass?” She cackles at his hyperbolic whine and tops him up anyway.

“I’d respect your attempt at an X-Men/Star Wars crossover if you hadn’t gotten there by accident.” Richie switches the cup to his other hand, keeping his log of an arm splayed over Eddie’s folded legs, palm cupping Eddie’s left knee. He has the gall to not only keep his arm where it is, he also leans more heavily on it, scooting further into Eddie’s space.

“I genuinely want to know,” Stan says. “Five of us stayed in the East coast for college. Mike, Eddie, and Richie were in the same state. Yet I can count the number of times the seven of us were all together after high school.”

Richie, still glommed onto Eddie’s knees, absolves himself. “I was in another continent for a chunk of that, chief. Am I excused from the Stan-ish Inquisition?” 

The others answer as best as they can, knowing that Stan is in search of something more meaningful than distance and inevitability. Ben posits that it’s competing priorities to blame, and Bill and Mike second him. Beverly touches on a toxic relationship she’d been in and declines to comment further.

As shameful as the truth is upon reflection, Eddie won’t shirk from it. Not in front of these people. He lifts his head, sighing out, “I couldn’t stand the pity.”

Sitting straighter, Eddie’s all but crushed into Richie’s side. From his vantage point, he can see how Richie’s lips are slick and reddened, chapped edges raised like a cry for attention.

“I have a follow-up question.” With a guileless expression, Ben goes in for the kill. “Would you have done things any differently, if you had the chance?”

A thoughtful, wistful hush descends on them.

Richie won’t stand for it. “You’re doing this all wrong. The questions are supposed to get more _fun_. Unless joy has been canceled for the remainder of this century and nobody told me.”

Ben offers him an out. “You can answer yes or no, if you like. No need to tell us what you’d change.”

“So, to rephrase the question, have we done nothing wrong, ever, in our lives?”

“I’d do a few things differently,” Eddie says. He dares a glance at Richie, who’s already studying him.

“Would you?” Richie’s voice is teasing, much like the index finger that extends to caress Eddie’s neck, right below his ear. “That’s funny.”

“How is that funny?” Eddie grumps.

“You really want to know?”

Without waiting for an answer, Richie cups a hand over the side of Eddie’s face, blocking everyone else’s view of his mouth and how it’s brought against Eddie’s ear. Richie’s bottom lip drags Eddie’s past his earlobe before he clamps his teeth down on it.

Eddie shivers, his sensitive ears at the mercy of every hot burst of breath, every blunt scrape of teeth, every wicked flick of a tongue.

It takes a few seconds for Eddie to understand what Richie mumbles. When it takes on meaning, it punctures his core and escapes through the center of his spine.

“I’d have you do a few things differently, too.”

Eddie’s so out of his mind, displaced by alcohol and want, that he doesn’t quite register what he’s doing. What he’s letting Richie do. Who they’re doing it in front of. A tremor arrests him as Richie blows into his ear, coating him in gooseflesh. He jostles Richie while the latter giggles.

Eddie nestles into Richie’s panoramic frame, smothering himself into the crook of his neck. His brain empties itself of extraneous contents beyond the threadbare cotton on his cheek and the taut arm brushing against his waist.

Vaguely, Eddie hears Bill pose one last question for the group.

“Would you guys want to spend Thanksgiving with me and Audra in LA?”

Bill gets a near-unanimous yes. Eddie slurs a vow of attendance, too far gone to concern himself with pragmatism and logistics. Stan is the lone hold-out, explaining that he and Patty usually spend it with her family.

Bill addresses Eddie’s pillow. “Richie, how about you and- what’s that guy’s name? Sandy, right? You can bring him too, if he wants to come.”

Eddie peels his face off of Richie’s shoulder. “Who’s Sandy?”


	2. Autumn 2019

Sandy is an immigration lawyer, according to LinkedIn. A rather handsome one, according to Eddie’s optical nerves and societal conventions. His inky hair swoops in a downright artistic quaff. His billboard-ready smile belongs on the walls of Wentworth Tozier’s dental clinic.

He’s pretty. Not in a way that would provoke the designation of _Girly Boy_ from local bullies or warrant a diagnosis of _terminally delicate_ from his mother. Sandy is radiant. He’s got the sun-soaked skin of someone in their late twenties, contradicting his intimidating CV.

“It’s botox. They’re in Los Angeles. Of course it’s botox,” Eddie mutters to himself.

There’s no reason for him to look like that while also being a multilingual legal savant who betters people’s lives. He can’t have a forehead that smooth and also be recommended by Ruth dela Paz, Ph. D. for his “incisive decision-making”, praised by Michael Chen for his “expert advice and tireless support”.

Outside of LinkedIn, Sandy’s social media accounts are private. Eddie can only view his profile photo on Facebook. There, he’s a quintessential pinup of California, from his sea breeze-tousled hair to his wide, untethered smile.

“Those are lip fillers. Has to be lip fillers.”

Sandy’s swimmer’s body is evident, haloed by a resplendent pour of sunshine. A surfboard dangles by his side.

“He looks like he lives off of protein supplements.”

After rummaging through that tiny sliver of Sandy’s uploaded life, Eddie goes for the nuclear option. He delves into Richie’s.

But there’s not much more to glean from Richie’s profiles, either. They’re sanitized of anything incriminating. It makes sense – Eddie’s midnight routine suggested that Richie wasn’t out to his adoring masses.

Still, Eddie spots Sandy scattered throughout Richie’s albums, though sparsely. The most recent picture of him is from two months back, at a comedy club with three other men that Eddie doesn’t recognize. Richie’s at the center of the photo, visibly glistening. His hair is wild and matted, face flushed with adrenaline. Sandy’s smile is more subdued but no less genuine.

The unblemished, congenial air about Sandy is overt even through a screen. It advertises the fact that he doesn’t have regular check-ins with his therapist about cleaning out his medicine cabinet. That he doesn’t visit his mother’s grave to negotiate for her forgiveness, only to end up enumerating the other ways he should have defied her while she was still alive.

Even after scrolling down to 2012, the year Richie moved back to the US, Sandy only features in a handful of photos in Richie’s meticulously curated timeline. But a lack of photographic evidence does little to ward away the punishing scenes crystallizing behind Eddie’s temples.

Sandy laughing with abandon at each punchline Richie throws his way. Sandy taking Richie by the hand and leading him to a candlelit table he’d reserved for them. Richie’s palm low on Sandy’s back as they get in a car together, rushing to get him alone. Delirious with excitement, no matter how many nights they’ve ended in a similar way.

Eddie digs the heels of his palms to his eye sockets, wanting nothing more than to gouge out the images that his mind conjures.

He’s got to stop mourning as though somebody died. ( _Here lies Richie, in another man’s bed_.)

But the one thing he understands about the stages of grief is this: they don’t line-up in order and they don’t stay conquered. Not for Eddie. They’re more like Penrose steps. He can scale the moebius strip stairwell without stopping to rest, and he’ll just end up where he started, grieving over things he’d lost years ago.

-

“Eddie? Is that you?” Marty calls out from inside his office. “Where are you headed?”

Eddie halts his rampaging loafers. “Adrian called.”

“Adrian?” Marty ogles, working out a riddle in his head.

“The office manager,” Eddie clarifies.

“Right, right. What does he want?”

“He says I have to sign for something. I’m not sure what it is, I didn’t get anything delivered to the office.” Eddie did it a couple of years ago, and Marty asked him to give prior notice in the future so that he can clear their space of confidential materials. He never did it again.

Eddie’s explanation proves to be insufficient. Marty calls the reception desk with additional queries, affording Eddie’s mystery package the same gravity that others would a murder trial. Eddie could’ve easily made three or four roundtrips to the reception desk in the time it takes for Marty to relent and hang up.

“What did he say?” Eddie asks despite already having an idea.

“The deliveryman won’t take a proxy signature.” Marty shakes his head in disapproval. “Go get rid of him. And the next time you have something delivered here, could you please just let me know? We have sensitive material in the workplace, and some of these delivery guys come in and out like they own the building.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks. Oh, and come see me when you’re done. We should talk about next Friday.”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll be out-of-town for Thanksgiving, but I’ll have my phone with me in case anything comes up.” Eddie watches Marty’s face morph into the one he uses when he’s about to unleash bad news.

“I might need you to come into the office,” Marty says.

Eddie’s stomach drops. “I put in the time-off request back in August.”

“I know. I hate to ask this of you, Eddie. I truly do.”

“I thought Dave was covering for me.”

“It’ll take Dave twice as long to finish, and he’s got kids.”

What’s Eddie supposed to say to that? My condolences? “I’ll bring my laptop. I can be online whenever.”

“I appreciate that, but you never know what you’re connecting to and making our clients’ data vulnerable to,” Marty argues. “You said you’ll be out-of-town. Will you be in a hotel? Do you know how many people can get access to public wi-fi, password-protected or not?”

“I won’t be in a hotel. I’ll use a secure network.”

Marty exhales heftily. “Eddie, do you think of this as unimportant work?”

Yes. “No.”

“I’ve fought so hard for you when our SVP’s wanted to give your position to some Cambridge MBA they were salivating over.”

Marty’s waiting for some sort of reaction, and Eddie settles for a listless apology.

Marty leans back on his chair. “I’m not blaming you for what those guys put me through. I just wish you’d help me out a little. Give me something I can say to them when they come after me every week for my staffing decisions.”

It’s easier to bite back defensive retorts when Eddie tunes Marty out. He calms himself by thinking about the Excel sheet waiting for him at his desk – the one that calculates how long his savings would last him if he quit his job tomorrow.

-

Eddie stomps off to the reception desk with his resignation fantasy propelling him. As he nears his destination, he catches the out-of-place figure decked out in autumn colors – red maple leaf hair, pecan pie knit scarf, chestnut boots. His earlier thoughts evacuate his head, usurped by a savage jolt of glee.

“Bev?!”

He’s not sure who tackles who, only that they end up in an aggressive embrace, clutching each other as though their lives depend it.

“Happy birthday, Eddie!” Beverly sing-songs as she works on pulverizing his ribs.

“It’s your birthday, EK? Happy birthday!” Adrian chimes in from behind the reception desk.

“I can’t believe you’re really—!” Eddie has little time to react when Beverly shoves a gift-wrapped box into his chest with a cupcake balanced on top of it. “Do you know the probability of someone our age suffering sudden cardiac arrest?”

“Do I get a prize if I do?”

“You get a vigilant mindset and improved odds at making it past sixty-years-old.” Eddie takes a step back to listen to himself. “No, forget it, that’s not the point. What I meant to say is, you didn’t have to do any of this. This… This is….”

Beverly places a hand over his. “It’s a group effort. I’m just the one that gets to hand deliver it.” She brings her phone up between them, camera facing him. “Smile!”

Eddie does as Beverly asks before he can think too hard on it.

“Perfect,” she declares. “Gotta send the others proof of delivery.”

“Thanks for coming all the way here. This is seriously…” Eddie gives up on the rest of the sentence, unlikely to gain the needed vocabulary that captures his gratitude. “I can’t take the cupcake, though.”

“It’s gluten-free,” Beverly assures. “There’s fig and pistachios in it – you’re good with those, right? We had a whole-ass group FaceTime compiling your allergies. We couldn’t agree on which ones were real, so we stayed on the safe side.”

The thought of it coaxes a soft smile onto Eddie’s face. His friends’ consideration overshadows the mention of his mother’s handiwork. “It’s pollen. That’s it. And gluten won’t kill me, it just makes me feel tired.”

“Yeah, I figured he was right.” Beverly doesn’t clarify who she’s referring to and Eddie doesn’t ask. “Anyway, I think it’s safe to say there’s no pollen in there.”

“I sure hope so. But it’s not that, it’s just. I can’t eat at my desk.” Not without attracting needless scrutiny.

“Oh, really? Okay. I can hang on to it for you,” Beverly offers. “I was hoping I could take you out to dinner. Unless you have other plans?”

Adrian lets out an amused sound. He clears his throat when Eddie shoots him a look.

“I wish I could,” Eddie says. “I’ve got a couple of things to wrap up here.”

“Drinks later, then?” Beverly persists. “I’ve got all night, birthday boy.”

Eddie deflates a little. “I really want to, but.”

“Hey, no, it’s alright. You can spend the day however you like. I wish you didn’t have to spend it working, but I get it.” Beverly squeezes his bicep. “I’m sorry to ambush you at work, by the way.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while.” Eddie frowns at how that sounds before turning to Adrian. “Do you like cupcakes?”

Adrian makes a face but grabs it from Eddie anyway. “You can leave it here for now then pick it up on your way out.”

“Okay, yeah. Thanks.”

“So you two are, like. Friends?” Adrian adds in about twenty extra vowels to the last syllable.

“Do you have to sound so shocked that I interact with people outside of work?”

“I just didn’t want to assume anything,” Adrian says. “At first, I thought she was your girlfriend, then I thought, wasn’t this the guy that had a little Jim-and-Pam moment with some other dude that used to work here? And then I thought, bisexual erasure is not cute, Adrian.”

Jeez, why do Eddie’s exes keep coming up recently? “Even if I were interested in women, it’s quite a stretch to suggest I’d have a chance with this one.”

“Need I remind you I’ve made exactly one good choice when it comes to romantic partners,” Beverly says.

Eddie tries too hard not to relate with that sentiment. “I see you implying that hetero-Eddie would fall into the mistake category, too.”

“ _Hetero_ -Eddie?” Beverly’s face contorts in mock-disgust. “Uh-uh, he’s an aberration. No rights for him.”

“Noted. How about gay AF Eddie, do you have time for him this weekend?”

“Oh, I have all the time in the world for gay AF Eddie. But not literally, no offense.” Beverly grimaces. “I’m with a client tomorrow afternoon and at an event at night, then I take off the next day. I could do breakfast if you’re free. Brunch? That sound good?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Adrian snaps to get Eddie’s attention as he adjusts his headset. From where Eddie’s standing, he can hear Marty’s tirade spewing through Adrian’s earpiece. “Sorry to put a pause on the kiki. Boss-man’s having a meltdown about you being gone from your desk for more than five minutes. What do you want me to tell him?”

Eddie sighs. “I should go back. Can I leave the gift here, too? I don’t want Marty to see it and accuse me of smuggling a bomb into the building or whatever.”

“Go for it.” Adrian leans over to Beverly conspiratorially. “I swear Eddie’s boss implanted sensors somewhere in his body to keep track of him.” He unmutes himself and speaks into his headset.

“He’d get along with my ex,” Beverly says under her breath. “Alright, I’ll head out. Hope you get out of here sooner rather than later.”

Eddie nods before Beverly collects one more hug for the road. “You and me both.”

-

**Unknown Number**  
happy birthday  
thank you for being born and making room for me in your mom’s vagina 😭 

**Unknown Number**  
you coming to bill and audra’s excellent thxgiving?  
im bringing mac n cheese  
going by myself so i dont want to carry more than i have to  
and i need to know how much flamin hot cheetos i gotta smash 

**Unknown Number**  
did you open your gift yet? 

-

Eddie now owns a binder of DVD’s and a portable cassette player.

The DVD’s are old VHS’s that they must have had converted. It’s the sort of sentimental shit that got to him when he was younger. He was a prematurely nostalgic child.

It’s easy to figure out which friend was responsible for which contribution. For example, the footage of them on prom night undoubtedly came from the Uris family. Andrea and Donald wanted to immortalize the dumb kids that threw on suits and gowns only to spend majority of the night at Leroy Hanlon’s farm. There are hard cuts throughout the video, black holes where Stan must’ve scrubbed out visual reminders of Eddie and Richie dancing together.

A couple of others are sterilized in the same manner. Beverly’s filmed vignettes of a post-graduation road trip contain no hints of Eddie and Richie’s previous relationship. Bill scrounged up a home video of himself, Eddie, and Georgie dressed up as He-Man, Skeletor, and Orko, respectively. Ben found one of the two of them learning the choreography to a Janet Jackson video.

His friends have mostly done their part to dull the blow of seeing what he and Richie used to be. And it would’ve worked without a hitch, had Eddie not encoded his Richie-memories with impeccable fidelity to begin with.

And then, there’s Richie’s contribution.

Richie thought it would be a good idea to give Eddie a copy of his fateful audition.

Eddie’s barely in the footage – he was the one filming Richie, after all. He hears himself in the offscreen giggles and occasional heckles while Richie regales the camera with his relentless charm. The Australians would’ve been comatose not to see something in Richie.

Eddie can’t look directly at video-Richie’s face, aglow with delight whenever he can extract an explosive reaction from his cameraman. Instead, Eddie fixes his stare on the date stamp on the bottom left corner of the frame. _JUL._ _07 1999_ , memorializing the beginning of the end.

Seven months after this was filmed, on February 29, 2000, Richie would leave for Sydney. He’d leap off to the new Eddie-less chapter of his life on the first leap day of the millennium.

Eddie used to come up with these cerebral exercises, constructing riddles for himself. A loop of what if’s. What if the turn of the century hadn’t been a leap year? What if that extra square on the calendar hadn’t been given to them? What if he could blot that one day out from history?

It was a traitorous thought that ambushed him often. Terrible pangs of regret over Richie’s first big break after six years of slogging through auditions and odd jobs.

It’s funny how six years felt like an eternity back then.

The old regret comes rushing back, and Eddie’s not sure how much of it is a memory. And with it comes the old anger. Anger at Sydney for locating itself at the other end of the world. At Boston for failing to procure an opportunity worth staying for. At Chicago and New York for dismissing Richie wholesale, telling him he wasn’t what they were looking for.

At Richie for needing to go, and at his mother for needing him to stay.

Richie’s audition tape comes to an end with one final appeal to the camera. Eddie can’t imagine that this part made it to Australia. “ _If nothing else comes out of this, I’ll at least have proof that the cute cameraman thinks I’m the funniest guy he’s ever met._ ”

-

Mike’s video gift is a surprise, to put it mildly. For all his tried and tested brilliance, he manages to one-up Richie’s questionable offering.

Mike’s DVD holds clips of the farewell present that they filmed for Richie – outtakes that didn’t make the final cut. It’s basically a montage of Eddie’s many, many ruined shots. Each attempt at a video message ended with a request for a retake.

On film, Eddie wore a manic grin that made it look like there were strings yanking brittle cheeks in opposite directions. _“When you and your group make it big there in Sydney, here in the States, wherever else you go… I can’t wait to say I knew you when.”_ Abruptly, he shook apart, expression crumbling. _“I’m sorry, guys, I can’t. I can’t.”_

Beverly ran up to him and wrapped around his furling figure. _“Oh, sweetheart.”_ She unknowingly cooed out a name that Richie used for him in private, and Eddie buckled in her arms. The frame bobbed around as if the person holding the camera was shuffling forward, and Stan popped out of nowhere to prop Eddie up.

Even with the fuzzy quality of the film, Stan’s eyes were visibly bloodshot. Eddie had no idea he’d been crying then, too.

Eddie realizes that this moment must’ve hit Stan harder than it did the others. Stan had already known by this point. He was the one who listened to Eddie agonize over the fate of his and Richie’s relationship. He was the one who endured Eddie’s lamentations about what he had to do to help Richie fulfill his ambitions.

And Stan had been the one to tell Eddie what he already knew. _You won’t just be breaking_ his _heart if you go through with it_.

Video-Stan, looking too weary for his age, addressed the camera over the top of Eddie’s head. _“Is that thing still on?”_

Offscreen, there’s a sniffle, and Mike’s voice can be heard. _“Sorry, I’m—”_

-

Eddie gives himself a breather before he tackles the cassette player. He paces around his cramped apartment for a good five minutes before he shucks off his house clothes and changes into his running gear.

A jog around the neighborhood and a scalding shower later, he picks up the cassette player with rejuvenated resolve.

Eddie pops the deck open to inspect it, finding a piece of paper wedged in front of the cassette that’s loaded inside. He unfolds the note, unveiling a scrawled message: _You really thought you could get rid of me that easily?! -Your mixtape_

Richie – _Sandy’s boyfriend Richie_ – has never been the poster boy for mental health.

Although to be fair, the same can be said of Eddie, because he doesn’t even hesitate to click the player shut and hit play.

The same old songs fizzle out of his new music player. The same old ache throbs for a new empty apartment to witness, and the same old words find new wounds to rub salt into.

_There’s so many times I’ve let you down, so many times I’ve played around. I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing._

As much as he wants to, Eddie can’t begrudge Richie for this.

Richie trivializes whatever crosses his path, but even he’s got exceptions. Richie wouldn’t ever let Eddie feel like a joke. He’d never let _them_ feel like a frivolity.

If he ever allowed Eddie to think that he wasn’t serious about what they had, he wouldn’t have been so devastating to let go of.

-

**Eddie**  
I’ll be at Bill’s and Audra’s for Thanksgiving.  
I’ll see you there.

**Sandy’s boyfriend**  
noice

-

On Thanksgiving day, Bill and Audra make Eddie and Mike work for their lodging.

Eddie takes on clean-up duty, not being particularly well-versed in the kitchen. Of the four of them, he bears the brunt of manual labor, which isn’t all that fair considering that he’s only staying one night in the Denbrough-Phillips home.

Mike’s contribution to the Thanksgiving cause is punch that turns out too sweet for Bill and Audra’s tastes. He then redeems himself by following a gravy mix recipe to a T.

Meanwhile, Eddie and Mike’s gracious hosts take turns ruining the turkey. Audra stuffs the doomed dish a little too enthusiastically, causing it to dry out. Bill attempts to come to its rescue by piling on more seasoning and succeeds in reaching the Dead Sea’s level of salinity. Mike is less put-out by the loss of a turkey dinner than by Bill and Audra rendering his gravy a moot effort.

Dessert, at least, goes off without a hitch. Mostly because all they have to do is serve pies that were delivered to them from a bakery in Georgia. The pies are Stan’s way of apologizing for skipping their long overdue Friendsgiving in favor of staying on his in-laws’ good side.

When Richie arrives, he doesn’t engage Eddie past a stilted greeting. For his part, Eddie forgets to thank him for the cassette player. Or to call him out on chewing the side of Eddie’s face before mentioning that he’s got Surfer Dude, Esquire waiting for him at home.

Eddie stews in the inertia of the words he’s holding onto. They stay imprisoned in him as they settle around the dining table. He takes the empty seat between Beverly and Mike while Richie chatters Audra’s ear off.

Richie’s dismantling the reputation of some director Audra’s hoping to work with. His diatribe stalls when Mike scoops out a dollop of Richie’s mac and cheese for Eddie.

Eddie loads up a forkful of the dubious slop that’s leaving a fiery red residue on his plate. Richie thought it was a great idea to sprinkle crushed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos over his concoction, because of course he did.

When Eddie gets a taste of it, he lets out an appreciative moan.

He doesn’t realize that he’d closed his eyes until he has to blink them open. Only to find his friends gawking at him.

Audra’s covering her mouth, suppressing whatever her initial reaction had been. Beverly’s eyebrows have migrated to the middle of her forehead. Whereas Bill and Ben refuse to meet his eyes, Richie’s blatantly staring, mouth agape. Mike’s attention pings back and forth from Eddie to Richie.

Eddie flushes, suspecting that his moan might’ve crossed the line from appreciative to downright pornographic. “The mac and cheese,” he explains. “It’s good.”

Richie takes a minute to parse his words. “Do my ears deceive me? You’re voluntarily giving the seal of approval to a dish topped by a layer of junk food?”

Eddie takes a self-conscious sip of water. “Eighty percent of Thanksgiving dinner is junk food if you’re doing it right.”

Mike fucking _beams_ at him. “Wow. I am so proud of you.”

“Are we dropping truth bombs right now? Oh-oh no, here’s one. Incoming!” Richie mimics cartoon explosion sound effects. “ _Weeeeeeeeew…_ Eddie Kaspbrak digs Richie Tozier’s cooking. _Ka-pkrrsshhsh_!”

“You’ve always had good instincts in the kitchen,” Eddie remembers. “Even Maggie admitted that your chicken bacon pumpkin pasta casserole was better than your sister’s lasagna.”

Mike’s eyes double in size. “You’re just throwing random nouns together.” He points to the mac and cheese. “Do you want me to get you some more? You didn’t get a lot.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No thanks. This is enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t eat a lot during the week.” Eddie knows better than to think Mike is judging him, but he can feel himself get defensive all the same. “Work gets busy, so the office orders lunch.” And dinner. “It’s mostly salads, sometimes wraps. Whatever they think is conducive to number-crunching and report generation.”

“That sounds depressing. Sorry. And that’s coming from someone who has to read essays from twenty-somethings posturing like they’re the first to connect nationalism with ethnopolitical conflict.”

Eddie crinkles his eyebrows. “Now who’s throwing random nouns together.”

“You’ve become one of those work-through-lunch types, huh? You’re as bad as San—” Richie abruptly decides not to finish his thought out loud.

Eddie gets it anyway and feels the need to rebut. “No, I’m not.”

“And there’s that Kaspbrak confidence, thinking he can win an argument with no shred of evidence whatsoever.”

Eddie bristles at how Richie thinks he can talk down to him like that just because he’s dating a man with a law degree. “I saw that picture of you guys at a county fair. You were snarfing deep fried – I don’t know – lard balls or whatever and he was holding a fucking corn on the cob. I eat fried things. I bet he hasn’t touched the stuff since the 90’s.”

“What county fair?”

Shit. “The point is, I’m not like him.”

The sides of Richie’s lips curl up. “Have you been stalking me?”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do?” Eddie demands. “Nobody was volunteering information about a fucking boyfriend I almost helped you cheat on.”

“Boyfriend?” Richie loses color in his face.

“I’m going to just—” Mike grabs Richie’s elbow, pulling him out of his seat. He swaps his and Richie’s plates before slinking into the chair he’d just ejected Richie from. He pointedly turning his back to them.

Richie slides into the newly empty seat next to Eddie, continuing without losing a beat. “Okay, this- let me explain. It’s not like that with me and Sandy. Not anymore. There were times when things were less casual, yeah, before we knew any fucking better. Should I have told you that? Is that information useful to you?”

Richie referring to his relationship as casual rather than non-existent doesn’t escape Eddie. “It wouldn’t have hurt to know.”

“Well, there you have it, then. Sandy’s an ex who I happen to live… in the same… housing unit with.” Richie’s features twist the farther along he goes, trapped in a slow-motion wreckage of his own doing. “Okay, that sounds like a lot more… _more_ than it actually is.”

“You’re _living_ together?!” Eddie hisses so as not to be heard by the others. “You were living with your technically-ex-boyfriend when you stuck your fucking tongue in my ear?!”

“Yes, but also, I’m only living there ‘cause he hasn’t kicked me out yet.”

“Oh, sure. What are you to him? A tenant? A friend? Are you a fucking sitcom couple in the ‘off-again’ phase? What?”

“Alright, so. Still being honest here. We’re- hmm. How do I put this delicately.” Richie mulls it over and he comes up with, “Buddies who reap infrequent mutual advantages from each other.”

“You’re live-in fuckbuddies,” Eddie deadpans.

“Exactly.” Tragically, Richie seems to relax, like he’s in the clear for having confirmed such a thing. “I can give you the number of strings attached. Ready? It’s zero. Okay? Sandy and I are fucking Pinocchio showing off his sick dance moves.”

“Does Sandy know that?”

“Does he know what? That he’s gone on record saying he’d rather deepthroat a cactus than be with me again? I’ll go out on a limb and say he’s aware.” Richie points to Eddie’s phone sitting by his wine glass. “If you don’t believe me, pull up Grindr. That’s the first place you should’ve looked if you wanted to stalk him.”

“I’m not on those fucking apps.”

“The dating apps, then.

Eddie inhales through his teeth, reining in the reflex to spar. “I just wish I’d known about him before what went down in the clubhouse. You understand why I would’ve wanted to know about significant others, don’t you?”

“Not significant,” Richie corrects.

“I’d prefer not to find out that I’m an accessory to infidelity—”

“Where did I lose you, was it at ‘not’ or at ‘significant’?”

“—through a fucking Thanksgiving dinner invitation,” Eddie raises his voice over Richie trying to get a word in edgewise. From the corner of his eye, he catches on to Beverly casually eavesdropping and he decides to make her pay for it. “So keep that in mind when Ben or Beverly finally propose to each other. Don’t spring a plus-one on us out of the blue.”

Beverly’s expression steels, unimpressed. Over brunch, she’d shared her disillusionment about marriage after years of working with domestic abuse survivors. “How nice of the Richie and Eddie show to include audience participation.”

Richie smirks at Beverly and Ben. “If you’re headed towards the heteronormative farce known as pre-divorce, you have my word that I am not subjecting anyone else to your money-burning rituals.”

Bill snorts. “Hard to believe that Sandy guy had second thoughts about you.”

“Bill,” Eddie chides even though Bill means nothing by it. Bill shrugs it off.

“I’m sure there’ll be another event to kickstart Operation: Make Eddie Get Along with Sandy.” Ben sounds so genial that it’s hard to tell if he’s kidding.

“Not too well,” Richie cuts in, genuine horror driving up his vocal pitch. “We don’t need them getting along _too_ well.”

“That’s the last thing you have to worry about,” Eddie promises.

-

Eddie’s half-passed out on the couch, belly straining to contain the enormity of his awful decisions. How are pies in Georgia that good? Come to think of it, are pies in New York good? He can’t recall the last time he’s eaten one.

Seeing as Bill’s starfished on the carpet with his mouth hanging open, and Ben is curled up, dead to the world in a recliner chair, Eddie’s past the point of caring. With most of his crew vanquished by tryptophan and carbo-loading, he allows his eyelids to droop.

He thinks his body’s gone numb from sternum down, but evidently there’s feeling in his legs as he senses weight plop onto them.

Eddie pries his eyes open and looks down. On his lap is a wild tuft of hair framing a scruffy but striking profile. “My couch,” he tells it.

“Bill might be down for the count, but you’ve still got to fight Audra for property rights.” Richie lolls his head lazily to peer over the armrest. “She’s with Bev and Mike in the entertainment room. She and Mike are still pretending that sports are interesting even after Bev literally fell asleep mid-sentence.”

The image wrenches drowsy laughter from Eddie. “It can’t be that bad. The Celtics have been promising so far.”

“You’re still following them? Didn’t change allegiances when you crossed state lines?”

“The fuck do you take me for? Besides, even native New Yorkers hate the Knicks,” Eddie says. “Don’t tell me you’ve hopped on the Clippers bandwagon.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“If you say the Lakers, you _will_ get what’s coming to you and Mike _will_ help me hide your body.”

“I’ve never given a speck of shit about basketball. I only kept up to get the whole context of your glorious ranting.” Richie snickers. “High school Eds was so invested that I was convinced you’d leave me for one of ‘em. You and that height kink of yours.”

Eddie retaliates by grabbing a handful of Richie’s hair and yanking. Richie howls, and Eddie can’t contain a villainous cackle that’s straight out of a campy direct-to-video flick. “Speaking of kinks.”

“Don’t pull out the little that I have left, asshole.”

Eddie cards his fingers through Richie’s hair, checking for himself that it has noticeably thinned from what he remembers. But it’s still soft and downy, retaining the qualities that make it addictive to touch. “You could try shampooing more than once a week. Eat more foods rich in beta carotene. If leafy greens are still out of the question, you could sneak in a carrot or a sweet potato once in a while.”

“I hear ya, doc. I’ve also noticed this other symptom recently. Seems I’ve hit my 40’s. You don’t suppose that could be related, do you?”

“This could also be a symptom of secondary syphilis.” Eddie stops short of suggesting that he talk to his fuckbuddies about that.

“Putting on the greatest hits for me. STD statistics, my favorite lullaby.” Richie emits a groan that’s leapfrogged by a mild warning noise when Eddie’s fingernails scrape along his scalp.

“Sorry.” Eddie tempers his caresses into friendlier-type pats, rigid with contrition.

“I mean. I wouldn’t mind if you keep going.” Richie nudges Eddie’s hand with the top of his head, appealing for attention. The way he says it is stripped of his usual bluster, like he’s bracing for rejection and he forgot to camouflage his fear.

Eddie is easily, unfairly disarmed. His better judgment slips through his fingers, and in its place glides curls as dark as the midnight sky. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Richie sends up a smile as an instant payoff. One of his arms come up, and an outstretched index finger lands on Eddie’s forehead. He traces over the parallel indentions above Eddie’s eyebrow line, easing the skin into smoothened submission.

“Yes, I’ve got wrinkles now, so does fucking everyone else in this house,” Eddie grouses.

“I just can’t believe someone else got to give these to you.”

“I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. I’m sure you laid the groundwork for them.”

“These guys too.” Richie runs his finger down the laughter lines on either side of Eddie’s mouth. His hand lingers just to the corner of Eddie’s lips. Eddie’s own hand stills, caught in the trapping of Richie’s hair. Suddenly they’re both tangled in it, suspended in their mutual voyeurism.

Eventually, Richie has to pull his arm back, wincing as though he pulled a muscle. “Ah, fuck.” He places his hand down on his own waist as he tries to sit up. “What the fuck, no one told me you can you be too old to lie down.”

Eddie’s hand retreats to his side. “You were, like, bent in a ninety-degree angle, doofus.”

“How many times must I be punished for not being straight.” Richie lifts his legs onto the couch, lining them up to the rest of his body. He rolls and slithers between Eddie and the back of the couch, displacing Eddie and forcing him to scoot to the edge of the seat.

“Hey! I share the couch with you and this is the thanks I get!” Eddie protests.

Richie grabs Eddie’s wrist and tugs. “Get down here. You’ll fit. There’s a reason you come fun-sized.”

“You’re too—” Eddie doesn’t say ‘big’, not wanting to set them up for a stupid that’s-what-she-said exchange. “You’re like one of those giant Saint Bernards that thinks he’s a lapdog.” He ends up acquiescing, anyway, slipping into a laying position beside Richie.

“Hah. I’m suing 23 and Me if they don’t tell me that I’m 100% that bitch.” Richie gets an arm around Eddie’s middle and draws him backward, seamlessly slipping into his role as a makeshift safety belt. The problem is, Eddie’s so stuffed that the motion makes him feel like he’s about to be sick.

“You’re holding on too tight.” Eddie regrets the turn of phrase the moment it leaps out of him. Richie’s missing comeback is a response in itself.

Eddie atones for it by twisting to his other side so that they’re facing one another. He drapes an arm over Richie’s torso and fits his head under his chin. “Am I heavy?” he checks. “Want me to get off?”

“No,” Richie answers tightly. Then, “To the first question.”

Eddie whaps Richie’s chest since his hand is already in optimal position to do so. “No, Richie. Bad.”

“‘Bad,’” Richie repeats, in peril of sounding fond. “I didn’t even say anything, why are you scolding me like I’m an actual Saint Bernard?”

“I wanted to yell at you like you deserve but I’m actually worried that my dinner’ll come back up,” Eddie huffs. “I’m so fucking full. I’m blaming this on your mac and cheese.”

“Alright, check this out. If I spared no fucks about your boundaries, then I’d say something about cannibalism and flamin’ hot snacks. _But_ , as the pinnacle of maturity, I’m refraining from such comments.”

Eddie can practically hear his smug grin. “What a gentleman.”

“Thanks for finally noticing.” Richie places a cautious hand between Eddie’s shoulder blades, a tease of a touch more than anything. “You may also be interested to learn that my culinary skills will again be on display at the Tozier family Christmas dinner. Er, holiday dinner. Liz’s partner doesn’t celebrate.”

There’s too much to unpack there, so Eddie starts simple. “Is Lizzie married?”

“Yup. They’re hosting this year. And they’re in San Diego, so you wouldn’t even have to suffer through LAX again.” The quizzical silence that Richie receives makes him backpedal. “But it’s cool if you’ve got something else going on. Or if, for some reason, you’re not into these day-guzzling bicoastal flights.”

After some time, Eddie manages to vocalize his most pressing question. “Do you mean it?”

“You forget you’ve got a lifetime invite? Went doesn’t do takebacks. Unless you’re making bets on spelling bees, then it becomes a lesson on the ills of gambling.”

“Are you sure they wouldn’t mind?” presses Eddie. “I kind of lost touch with them after you left. They checked up on me for a while at first, but… I wasn’t in a good place. Let’s put it that way.”

“Eddie. You’re literally the first thing they asked about when they heard that I went to the reunion.”

“I miss them.” Eddie’s voice catches a little. “I really want to see them, but. I don’t know. Year-end’s one of our busiest times. Like, as it is, I have to fucking lie to my manager tomorrow that my flight got delayed. I’m landing at noon tomorrow but I’m supposed in the office by eight.”

“It’s the day after Thanksgiving, _nobody’s_ supposed to be in the office. Let alone by _eight_ ,” Richie says, disgusted.

“I wish everyone felt the same.” Eddie has to ask, “Will Sandy be there?”

“Nah, he fucks off to Arizona. And it’d be weird if I brought him. Like, ‘hey family, meet the guy I broke up with half a year ago’.”

“Wait, you never introduced him to your family? You live with the guy!”

“The duality of man. Isn’t it fascinating?”

A selfish part of Eddie picks up a bit of solace from this, but a bigger part of him is unsettled. “This whole commitment phobia thing, is it a new thing you’re trying out?”

Richie hums with manufactured nonchalance. “Makes you wonder what happened between now and the last time I told someone I was in it for the long haul.”

Eddie feels something in him cave in. “Don’t you think that person loved you? And they knew they had no right to hold you back?”

“Give me some credit. I get what you were trying to do,” Richie says.

“No, I don’t think—”

“I get it,” Richie interrupts him. He raps a knuckle gently over Eddie’s head. “But, you know, you’re overworking this little noggin, and you’re telling me the best it could come up with was to go full fucking scorched earth?”

Eddie scowls. “If you ended up second-guessing your plans, or- or even turning down Sydney altogether, I would’ve never forgiven myself. _You_ would’ve never forgiven me.”

“Good thing one of us could see into the future.”

“I am so fucking tired,” Eddie says with feeling. He feels Richie’s chest puff up abruptly underneath his cheek. It stays that way for some time, tightly drawn. He mentally curses himself. “I think I… might nap here for a bit.”

Richie releases the tense lungful he was nursing. “‘Kay.”

“The guestroom’s made up if you want to take it.”

Richie makes a noncommittal noise. “Kinda ready to conk out right here. If that’s okay?”

“Yeah. It’s okay.”

Richie’s hand sweeps along Eddie’s shoulders, traverses the length of his spine. His hand’s bigger and heavier than Eddie remembers, yet its touch feels gentler. But Eddie doesn’t know how much of it is him retrofitting his memories to the oversensitivity in his chest. 

Richie hums a bridge of a song. He doesn’t sing the lyrics, but they knock around in Eddie’s head anyway.

_Now the time has come to leave you. One more time let me kiss you._

_Close your eyes I’ll be on my way._


	3. Winter end of 2019, start of 2020

**Richie**  
thoughts on homeless people? 👀

**Eddie**  
What?

**Richie**  
homeless people  
fmk?

**Eddie**  
?????

**Richie**  
do you still hate them or…

**Eddie**  
Of course I don’t hate them.  
My mom hardwired my brain into associating them with diseases, but I got over that.  
And there was that creep on Neibolt Street that kept yelling shit at me but that’s another story.

**Richie**  
yeah  
ok cool  
was curious where me and my people stand with you

**Eddie**  
What do you mean your people?  
You only LOOK you live in squalor, when the reality is you and Sandy have an apartment by the fucking beach.  
I mean I’m assuming it’s by the beach, how would I know for sure.

**Richie**  
*sandy has an apartment  
my homelessness isn’t a lifestyle, mom, this is just who i am now

**Eddie**  
WHAT?  
What happened

**Richie**  
_Richie is typing…_

_Calling_  
**Richie Tozier**

-

“Thank you for calling Tozier’s Pleasure Palace. We’re here to give you a hand. Among other things.”

Eddie’s tensed breath rushes out of him as a long-suffering sigh. “Hi.”

“If you’re calling to make a new appointment, please press one. If you’re calling with regards to your platinum membership—”

“Rich.” Eddie tamps down a command for Richie to be serious, knowing that it could send him dashing towards the opposite direction. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

Richie finally drops his phone-menu voice. “Hunky-dory, and squatting at Lizard-breath’s B&B.”

“You’re at Lizzie’s?”

“Yep. Affordable lodging, but I was not informed beforehand that housekeeping is DIY. Very disappointing, I’m blowing up the Tripadvisor page as we speak.”

“Why are you staying with your sister?”

“I, uh. Hashed some things out with my former landlord. Came to the conclusion that we’re… cock-blocking each other from better prospects.”

Eddie’s grip on his phone tightens. “What does that mean. Did you two fight?”

“He was weirdly diplomatic for the most part.” Richie snorts. “He got some good zingers in, though. He’s like, _ka-pow!_ , he’s better off not settling for a ball-free coward who’s got one foot in the closet. A closet in which I am – quote, unquote – jacking off to cartoons. And also, _blam!_ , at least only three years of his life were wasted. Could’ve been worse. Which – not even true. Holy memory lapse, Batman. We broke up for fucking good long before that.”

A remote garbled noise puts a hamper on Richie’s rhythm.

“ _Sorry_!” Richie bellows a distance away from the mouthpiece, addressing someone else. To Eddie, “Liz is flipping out ‘cause the nibling’s in the other room.”

“The what?”

“Nibling. Liz’s kid.”

“…Why can’t you just say niece or nephew?”

“Language evolves,” Richie counters. “You could stand to keep up with Merriam-Webster instead of the Kardashians.”

“I do not—” Eddie catches himself, belatedly recognizing Richie’s usual tactics. “I don’t want to make you feel any worse—”

“Sounds promising so far.”

“—but you and Sandy were living together. Sometimes sleeping together.” Eddie blanches at how he comes off, straddling prudent and accusatory. “I can’t speak for him, but I know I couldn’t do either of those things with an ex and not… have complicated feelings.”

“Yeah, well. Where have you been hiding that morsel of wisdom for the past fucking year?”

“I’m not the one you’re angry at,” Eddie reminds him.

“No,” Richie concedes, before, “I don’t know, maybe.”

Eddie reels. “You’re angry with me?”

“Before I answer that. Thanksgiving night, on the couch. Did you want to kiss me?”

Eddie’s body sputters in response. Richie’s accusation lodges itself in his airflow and his blood vessels. “We’re not talking about this one day after you got out of a relationship.”

“I’m cool with that. Sandy and I ended the ‘relationship’ part of things a while back.”

“Did you, though?”

“I was there, pretty sure we did.” Without changing the rhythm of his voice, Richie calmly testifies, “I wanted to kiss you. At Bill and Audra’s. In the clubhouse. Fuck, the second I saw you at the reunion. Right the fuck now.”

Eddie swears he can feel his fingertips pulsating, with irritation as much as adrenaline. “Don’t do this. Not now. You’re still hurting.”

Richie laughs, a short, humorless huff that’s nothing like the ones that used to release butterflies in Eddie’s stomach. “Been that way since before I knew Sandy existed.”

“…You haven’t forgiven me for that.” Remorse prevents Eddie from speaking it much louder than a secret.

“I didn’t say that. I won’t lie, I wasn’t happy that you took the choice out of my hands.” Richie softens his tone, dulling some of the sharpness of his words. “But no, that’s not why I sometimes just. Want to reach out and– and wring your stubborn little neck.”

“Richie.” Eddie can’t moderate the hurt in his voice.

“Figuratively! I’d never want to do that for real.”

Small mercies. “So why do you want to figuratively strangle me?”

“You tell me,” Richie says. “What is it this time? My pseudo break-up? My job, your job? Fucking time zones?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fuckton of shit that shouldn’t matter when you— _oh get over yourself, Liz, your mouth was filthier at her age_!” Richie drops his voice when he addresses Eddie again. “Shouldn’t matter when you know _._ You know I’m in– I’m. A fucking ass-over-tits disaster when it comes to you.”

Eddie closes his eyes, screwing them shut as he wills himself to recover. There’s a corresponding admission at the tip of his tongue, hanging by its fingernails. “We’ve got to wait until everything isn’t so raw and in fucking chaos. What’s the worst that could happen if we wait?”

“I don’t want to fucking find out. It’s gonna be something, ‘cause I’m a fucking character in an Alanis Morissette song. You could get roped into a loveless marriage or I could fall into a coma. I could get snuffed out altogether.”

“That’s not funny,” Eddie says. “Can we just talk about something else for now?”

“I could come up with some ideas but it’ll be faster if you just tell me what I’m thinking,” Richie snarks.

“Rich. I hear what you’re saying. You’ve processed what happened with Sandy,” Eddie says. “But honestly, I… I’d like some time to process it, myself.”

Richie’s sigh lasts five whole seconds. “Don’t make me talk about my younger sister’s extremely put-together household right now. I’d rather get teabagged by a sperm whale.”

“We can talk about literally anything else,” Eddie assuages. “Anything that doesn’t inspire you to strangle me, symbolically or otherwise.”

“So long as general strangulation is open game for conversation.”

“I know you’re kidding but I actually just read an article on the long-scarf syndrome.”

“Sounds riveting,” Richie comments wryly. “Or, we can talk holiday plans. As in, you maybe staying a couple extra days to help me house-hunt?”

“So, it’s good you brought that up, actually. I won’t be able to make it,” Eddie says ruefully. “I tried every bargaining chip I have, but Marty wouldn’t have it. Not during year-end.”

“Mm. January works, too. Houses’ll still be there. Plenty of opportunity yet for you to shove me onto a showroom couch, hop on my lap, let me feel you up in front of—”

“That’s the kind of talk that’ll get _you_ strangled,” Eddie cuts him short.

“Ohhh, fuck yeah, keep going. What else you planning to do to me, baby?” Richie’s expectant silence stretches out, undisrupted. “…Fine. Go ahead, tell me about your scarf-play fantasies.”

“Don’t fucking call it that. But, really? You want me to tell you about the article?”

“Yep, give me your worst. But soon as you’re done, you can tell me what you’re wearing.”

-

**Richie**  
_Download image_

**Eddie**  
Thanks for the weather report.  
New York is cold, California is warm… I would’ve never guessed!

**Richie**  
_Download image_

**Eddie**  
Holy shit that’s a great price.  
That’s kind of worrying, actually? That plane is taking people across the fucking country. It should cost more than a trip to Whole Foods.

**Richie**  
lmao you should do your grocery shopping here  
i can see you blowing your load at a rainbow acres along with the other karens

**Eddie**  
Fuck all the way off :)  
Are there other flights at that price for Feb? I doubt I can take a vacation day this month.

**Richie**  
wtf the year just started  
comn you already missed tozier fam holiday palooza  
besides the flight’s for mlk weekend

**Eddie**  
There’s no such thing as a federal holiday where I work.  
My department’s swamped and we’re short-staffed as is.

**Richie**  
it’s almost like you want me to make that dick joke

**Eddie**  
You don’t need anyone setting you up, your brain auto-translates everything into an innuendo.  
I guess you must be some kind of professional comedian or whatever.

**Richie**  
it’s almost like you like me or something 😳😳😳

**Eddie**  
““““almost””””

**Richie**  
😶

**Richie**  
real talk though i could use your help  
i need a guy who works in insurance  
someone smart  
know anyone?

**Eddie**  
Ha fucking ha.

**Richie**  
ikr i’m told i’m a professional 😙  
i need someone in home insurance, specifically

-

Eddie doesn’t have the bandwidth to be jetting off to the other end of the country for something he isn’t even really needed for. Richie can cajole and hyperbolize until his throat dries up, but the truth is, Eddie’s physical presence won’t change the course of Richie’s home-buying journey.

And yet.

“Just took you twenty years to crawl back to me, huh, kid?”

Eddie’s head snaps to the direction of Richie’s voice. “You’re late.”

Richie shows up in incognito mode, complete with a plain baseball cap and nondescript shades. “I couldn’t find parking.” From behind his tree trunk legs, he produces another, much smaller human being. “This is Iman. Iman, this is Eddie, your mom’s old flame.”

“People can be flames?” Iman marvels. She doesn’t look much like Lizzie Tozier, but Eddie can see the inherited exuberance from where he’s standing.

“Don’t lie to your niece,” Eddie berates Richie. It’s not a lie, per se. He knows Richie’s referring to the time they mutually bearded for Lizzie and her then-girlfriend. It’s just not something he thinks he should be revisiting with Lizzie’s child.

“Hi! What did Uncle Richie mean?” She sidles up to Eddie, competing for attention in true Tozier fashion. “Does mom get mad at you a lot? She gets mad at me and mae, too. Not super often, though. She blows up at Uncle Richie a _ton_.”

“Mom is Liz, mae is Soriya,” Richie translates for Eddie.

“That’s ‘cause your uncle Richie says the wrong things all the time,” Eddie tells Iman. “Your mom and I aren’t old flames, we’re old _friends_. I’ve known her and your uncle since we were kids.”

“Oh, I knew that! Mom says she super happy you’re visiting. But then she didn’t come with us, she went with mae to the spa,” Iman says.

“They’ll be back by dinnertime. Liz’s looking forward to seeing you and all, but you’re no Cabernet grape body wrap,” Riche says. He grabs the handle of Eddie’s bag and pulls it out of reach, under the pretense of hurrying them along. “When were you going to tell me that you’re planning to wait out the entirety of winter here?”

“What?” Eddie says.

“Or do you just require majority of your belongings to survive a weekend away from New York?”

“It’s not a lot. My winter coat takes up half the bag.” Eddie nicks the side of Iman’s head with his thigh. “Oh, sorry.” He pats the top of her head, a gesture that makes him cringe as soon as he does it.

Iman absolves him of it by craning her neck and glancing up at him, smile wide and beatific. “It didn’t hurt. Mom says I’m so hard-headed my skull must be made of steel.” She reaches above herself to mimic Eddie’s gesture, petting the back of his hand.

Eddie makes a split-second decision to offer his open palm to her. She rewards him with an approving beam.

Richie wears his fondness openly, though it’s hard to tell where it’s directed at. “So that’s how it is, cinn-Iman bun. You’ve gone and traded me for someone closer to your size.”

“I haven’t! You’re still my Uncle Richie,” Iman cheerfully informs him before Eddie can fire off a retort. She trots up to Richie, tugging Eddie along with her. She takes Richie’s hand with her free one. “I just have a Mr. Eddie now, too.”

Richie barks out a raucous laugh that earns questioning stares from passers-by. “Sure is a myster-etty why ‘Mr. Eddie’ is averse to growth spurts. I hope he has no regretties.”

“Go fuck yourself. Try not to broadcast it to the Northern hemisphere when you do,” Eddie says under his breath. He can imagine what they must look like, with a child between, swinging their hands in hers. He wonders if he should remind Richie that he isn’t openly out yet, because this Richie, right now, could not be less bothered.

“No need to frettie, Mr. Eddie, we’re almost at the parking lottie.”

-

At Lizzie and Soriya’s place, a tray of guava and cheese strudels awaits them, along with a handwritten note from the MIA couple.

Iman shovels the pastry into her mouth with the flimsiest regard for manners, and Eddie digs in with the exact same level of gusto. Richie is content watching the pair of them demolish the desserts, opting for a burrito that he eats straight out of the fridge.

“When are we driving up to LA today to see the house?” Eddie runs his tongue over his teeth, feeling for flakes or jam. “On the off-chance you wanted to do something besides watch me inhale baked goods.”

“Well, living vicariously through baked goods was the biggest item on the agenda,” Richie responds through a mouthful of rice, beans, and shredded meat. He chuckles at Eddie’s warning glare. “We can save LA for tomorrow. We can be up there by noon, then I can take you to the airport. Where are you flying out of?”

“LAX. The Burbank flights were almost twice the price.”

“No biggie. You showed up. I’m not gonna bitch about which fucking airport I’m driving you to.”

Eddie’s eyes flash, cocking his head sideward in Iman’s direction. As if Richie might’ve forgotten the impressionable minds within hearing distance.

Richie waves him off. “She’s going to a public school, there’s no exposing her to anything new.” He licks his lips and stares down at his lunch with a measure of consideration. “Hey, Sweet’n Low, we got any hot sauce left?”

“How should I kn—” Eddie begins. Pauses. Waits for his soul to evacuate his body. He realized an eon too late that this particular asinine nickname was directed at Iman, not at him.

Richie either doesn’t notice or is so mortified on his behalf that he lets it pass uncommented.

By the time they’re done snacking, they’ve got more than enough hours to kill for a rendezvous with Netflix or a sightseer’s stroll at Mission Beach. Both options are nixed in favor of going over Richie’s storyboards for his as-yet untitled animated project.

Richie fetches a stack of large flip-chart papers from his room. He spreads four sheets over the coffee table and proceeds to point out landscape renderings and character sketches for Eddie and Iman to look at.

Richie’s storytelling skills have only gotten better, convincing Eddie that he can probably captivate an audience with a retelling of Baby Shark. He beguiles them with a world riddled with extraterrestrial enemies that can take on human exteriors. He introduces his unlikely heroes – men and women that were exposed to ability-enhancing quasiparticles, making them the best bet at thwarting a planetary coup.

“Our main man is Chance.” Richie taps on a character with frizzy hair that tumbles past his chin. His default portrayal pins him with a lopsided smirk. “He’s a parody singer by day. Like a young Weird Al Yankovic, except even more underappreciated. Obviously, he’s not as galaxy-brained as Weird Al, who’s—”

“—a stylistic genius that spans multiple genres. I know,” Eddie spares Richie from extolling the singer’s virtues for the hundredth time.

“Doesn’t hurt to remind our ungrateful society of his contributions. So yeah, Chance. He does well enough for an up-and-coming novelty act. But, like the giants whose shoulders he stands on, he gets no respect for his artistry. The DIA just sees this dumbass goofing off. Some idiot they can’t trust for shit.”

“Does Chance want to keep being a novelty act?”

“For now. His career isn’t the problem. It’s really just easier for him to be a spectacle rather than a person with vulnerabilities.”

Eddie catches Richie’s gaze and holds it.

Richie turns away after a while. “Wonder what that’s like,” he says weakly.

“But that’s just what the DIA thinks,” Eddie says. “The others that gained superpowers, are they on Chance’s side?”

“They become a team,” Iman posits. “Like the Power Rangers. Am I right?”

“Yeah, yeah, smarty-pants. Not right away, but they get there. Enter Lionel.” Richie directs their eyes to another character. “He’s Chance’s main foil in some ways.”

Richie stops to explain what he means by ‘foil’ when Iman scrunches her nose. He traps her in a loose, jovial headlock as he does it, because he’s only got about three modes when it comes to showing affection.

It’s odd how the thought of having his own kids makes Eddie violently ill, but seeing Richie with Iman has the opposite effect.

“In the beginning, Chance and Lionel clash like they were put on the world to get on each other’s nerves,” Richie goes on. “But then they start to get to know each other. They listen to each other. Before they know it, they’re each other’s biggest supporters.”

“Even though they fight at first?” Iman says.

“It takes them time to understand where the other’s coming from,” Richie explains. “The thing about Lionel is he’s this Olympic swimmer, so he’s got strict regimens and diets. Our boy Chance is not about that life. But, as often as they disagree, Lionel never shoots Chance down. Not unless he really deserves it.”

“And then they become best friends?”

“Well, I haven’t gotten that far, but. They’re meant for each other.”

Literally. Richie literally made these two characters for each other. Chance the funnyman and Lionel the Olympic swimmer.

Eddie thinks about the picture of Sandy holding a surfboard and his stomach turns.

“I like Lionel,” Iman says. “He gets to go to the Olympics and he’s got a cool jacket.”

Richie’s eyes crinkle at his niece’s verdict. “I have a feeling he’ll be a fan favorite, assuming I can ever get this thing greenlit once and for all. Lionel’s got this whole backstory. He’s going to find out later that he’s the Big Bad’s son.”

“That’s brilliant.” Despite his suspicions about what (or who) inspired the Lionel character, Eddie is still intrigued. He never tires of the Archnemesis Parent trope.

Richie smiles, painfully sweet. “See, Iman, I told you your uncle Richie’s the talent in the family.”

Eddie rolls his eyes to undermine the smile worming its way to his face. “So wait, does that mean Lionel’s an alien? He’s trapped in human form and he doesn’t even know it?”

“Shh, it’s a spoiler.” Richie fashions his hands as earmuffs for Iman. He leans in closer, whispering to Eddie. “The bad guys killed Lionel’s real folks when he was younger.”

Eddie flinches, half due to the reveal and half due to the memory of the last time Richie’s mouth was that close to his ear. “Oh, it gets dark. Where’s the villain here?” His eyes rove over the storyboards. “What’d you call them?”

Richie falters. “Would you believe I’m workshopping the name?”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “If you named the villain after me…”

Richie chokes on a shock of laughter. “‘Spaghetti’ is a terrible name for an archnemesis. It’s _Sonique_ , and she is a wholly fictional character. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is unintended.”

“Did you name your villain after my fuuuuh—” Eddie glances at Iman. “—udging mother?!”

-

The drive up Highway 1, hugging the coastline of the Pacific Ocean, is the kind of breathtaking that makes you question your life. But once they get past Orange County, the effect peters off incrementally.

Still, Richie’s enthusiasm never flags. He seems to luxuriate in the smog and the road congestion. “I’m home!” he declares.

Los Feliz – which Richie pronounces as “Los Fill-lease” for no discernible reason – lends itself to a homier atmosphere than downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods. The best part about it, Richie says, is that it puts him at a suitable distance away from his prior LA address.

Richie and Eddie meet with Jun, a petite realtor who looks as if she arrived via scooter. Nonetheless, she scores points with Eddie when she answers each of his questions with unruffled thoroughness. She’s prepared to discuss anything from volatile organic compounds to UV protection in tempered glass. She even totes her own (allegedly) updated statistics about 3.0+ magnitude earthquakes in the area.

While Eddie sniffs out warning flags in Jun’s responses, Richie forgoes any pretense of attentiveness. He’s far more interested snapping pictures as they tour the house. Half the time, his phone is aimed at Eddie and Jun’s direction.

The house is a two-bedroom stunner perched on green-covered hills. It has a sprawling second-floor balcony overlooking Silver Lake, suspended above a far-flung patio that the climate calls for. Even within the house’s walls, sunlight floods every corner. The number of floor-to-ceiling windows is frankly obnoxious.

After Jun has to flee to her next appointment, it’s just about time to head to the airport. Richie insists that there’s time for one last selfie.

He slings an arm around Eddie and tucks him to his side. Eddie sees Richie’s unseemly grin on the screen and his face instinctively mirrors it. Behind them, the sky is almost freakishly blue and vast, unfragmented by a single cloud. It’s as if the West Coast is so airheaded it forgot that they’re smack-dab in the middle of winter.

Once Richie is satisfied with his photographic ventures, they head to Richie’s car. After buckling in, Eddie confirms the terminal he needs to go to while Richie picks a playlist to stream. They get on the road as they’re serenaded by what sounds like a Gen Z tribute to the Beach Boys, if Brian Wilson sang while wearing a nose plug.

Eddie tinkers with the radio, dodging Richie’s air-slaps.

“No,” Richie rejects the station that Eddie eventually lands on.

“It’s a classic!” Eddie insists.

“You turn this into a Boyz II Men carpool karaoke and you’re walking to LAX,” Richie threatens.

As expected, he’s all bark. Two songs in, and he’s harmonizing with Eddie to Aretha Franklin. “‘City traffic’s movin’ way too slow. Drop the pedal” – they roll the r in _drrrrop_ – “‘and go’” – they face each other in the short interval, Richie’s finger guns engaged – “‘go’” – they turn to each other again – “‘go! We goin’ riding on the freeway of love…’”

When Richie asks Eddie’s opinion of the house, Eddie has a surprisingly uncomplicated answer at the ready. “It’s beautiful. And Jun seemed to know what she was saying. I still think she was wrong about the San Andreas fault, but otherwise most if it didn’t come off as bullshit to me.”

“She’s cool. If I hadn’t met her, I’d be convinced that SoCal real estate agents are mass-produced at a douche factory.” Richie’s looking at Eddie from the corner of his eye. “So you like the house?”

“I couldn’t find a reason not to, and you know I tried,” Eddie promises.

“Good.” It’s a bare statement, stripped of overproduced levity.

Eddie doesn’t know what to do with it. “But, at the end of the day, it’s up to you. You’re the one who’s going to live there. The most important question is, do you like it?”

“If it passes muster with your nitpicking ass, my search is well and truly over.”

Eddie grapples with that response, debating whether this is another instance where Richie’s words are meant to be interpreted or if they can be taken at face-value.

His phone rattles him out of his reverie before he can arrive at a decision. “Fucking really?” spills out of him.

“Who’s—?”

Eddie shushes Richie and lowers the car speaker’s volume. “Hello.”

“Hi, Eddie. Listen, I need a quick favor.” Marty has never needed a quick favor, so Eddie reserves the right to doubt that one right off the bat. “Could you log in to AgiliTask really quick? We need to integrate GM’s EBRs with the QM database. I hate to ask for this today, but I thought this was already done. The dashboard has to be in Kincaid’s hands by nine AM tomorrow.”

Eddie’s throat constricts. “I can’t do it right now. I’m on the road and I won’t be able to get my laptop until around midnight.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie struggles to find a more straightforward alternative for _I can’t do it right now._

Beside him, Richie asks, “Is that your work? Does New York not have Sundays, or…”

“What was that?” Marty says.

Eddie signals for Richie to shut up. “That was a friend. He’s talking to himself.”

“A friend?” Marty repeats, dripping with skepticism. “Is your _friend_ the reason why you aren’t able to merge the data for our multimillion-dollar client?”

Eddie bites back a question of how that’s relevant to work. “I don’t have my laptop with me. I’m headed to the airport right now and my flight’s in about two hours. I’ll work on the database as soon as I get home.”

“Eddie, did you leave Manhattan again?” It sounds like an accusation.

Eddie can’t help it this time. “Am I not allowed?” His heartbeat pounds in his ears, sounding as combative as his tone.

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” Marty returns. “I wish you’d told me sooner that this company isn’t a priority for you, Eddie. You could have been upfront with me when you knew we were restructuring.”

“I put in at least seventy hours every week.”

“Do you think you’re alone in that?” Marty throws back. “Do you think Jeremiah didn’t work just as hard as you?”

Eddie wants to cry in frustration, angry that he can’t argue Marty’s point. “No, I don’t think that.”

“Because I wouldn’t have had to let him go if it weren’t for you.”

“…Are you saying it’s my fault Jeremiah was fired?”

“Are you saying you didn’t suspect as much, Eddie? That you honestly thought you’d both get to keep your jobs after senior management found out about you two?”

“I should’ve known better.” Eddie compels evenness into his voice, desperate to end the call. “I’m. I’m sorry I can’t get you the data until midnight. There’s nothing I can do at this point. You can try Gillian or someone else at IT who might be able to help.”

“None of them have the security clearance, you know that.” Marty reverts to his original form, coating the edges of his words with a civil veneer. “If I can have it by midnight, it’ll at least give me seven hours to run the models and tease a story out of it.”

“I’ll get it to you as soon as I get home.”

Eddie pockets his phone and hoists a bellow deep down from his diaphragm onto the roof of Richie’s car.

“Holy shit,” Richie says. “What the fuck was that?”

“Fuck him. Fuck this shit, I’ve had it,” Eddie growls. He plops eight fat drops of CBD oil underneath his tongue.

“Where the fuck do you work, fucking nerd Hunger Games?”

Eddie holds off one more second before swallowing. “I’m giving them my two-weeks’ notice. I’m quitting. I have to. They treat people worse than shit. Jeremiah was paying for his dad’s cancer treatments and they just— I can’t fucking stay there.”

“Sounds about right.” Richie taps out a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel. He stops when a noise of condemnation rumbles from the back of Eddie’s throat. “Gonna take a sabbatical before marching back into those seventy-hour workdays?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie’s head is spinning with the clarity of what he has to do, but that unambiguous outlook is only good for fourteen days.

“You can even come back. Hide out here for a while.” The excessive nonchalance is vintage Richie. “I know how miserable you get this time of year.”

“Nowadays, it’s got little to do with the season.”

“Right. I’m just saying, I’ll have a guestroom. Fingers crossed. You’ll have a place to stay where you won’t have to roleplay as Bill and Audra’s adoptive son.” Richie lets the notion idle between them, lets it permeate and thicken the air. Right before it gets too suffocating, he attempts to wane it. “Something else keeping you in New York? Share with the rest of the class.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says again.

“Do you heart NY? Do you even fucking like it?”

“LA isn’t all that better than New York.” Eddie means it. He’s prone to developing loyalties regardless of whether it’s deserved.

Richie glances at Eddie and gets barked at for not watching the road. “It is what it is. There’s sunshine and shit, but everyone here’s got their heads so far up their butt implants. Half our day’s eaten up in traffic and wishing that someone would just invent teleportation already.”

“Is this you retracting the invite?”

“Thought I’d give reverse psychology a try, since throwing coastline joyrides and cute little kids at you didn’t work.”

Eddie wields a half-grin for the next time Richie steals a look. “Even if I up and quit my job, it won’t be that easy to pack my shit and move to the other side of the country for however long.”

“I might have a vague idea of what that’s like,” Richie says. “And what do you mean _if_ you quit?”

“When I quit,” Eddie corrects himself. “Like, forget my apartment and my career and the expenses. I’d have to find a new therapist, I’d have to debrief them about years of—”

“I get it,” Richie cuts in before Eddie can work himself up. “And there’s- _that_. What you said before.”

“What?”

Richie quirks his voice an octave too high to sound like Eddie. “You don’t just live with an ex without it being complicated.”

“ _Live_ with—”

“Stay with. Whatever. I have a guestroom,” Richie repeats, apropos of nothing. “It’ll be around. That’s all I was saying.”

No, that’s not all you’re saying, Eddie thinks. _Use your words. One of us has to._

He catches himself waiting for Richie to convince him. Not merely anticipating it, but actively willing it to happen. “And it wouldn’t mean anything if I stayed with you? It’d be the same as your situation with Sandy?”

“Oh, that’s what you want? That’s just where your head went, huh? Eddie baby, if you get lonely at night, I’m not opposed to throwing you a bone.” Richie throws in a caricatural wink for good measure.

“Fuck you,” Eddie spits wholeheartedly. “You can’t float the concept of living together then joke about sleeping with me for the hell of it. You cannot fucking do that.”

The edges of Richie’s mouth sink. “I wasn’t the one who brought the Sandy up. Yeah, I’ve fucked around with people who, at the time, were on the same wavelength as me. Doesn’t mean I’m incapable of anything else.” He suddenly hits the breaks and they screech into a halt, leaving a sliver between them and another car’s bumper.

“I know that.” Eddie wriggles in his seat, adjusting his taut seatbelt. “Still, I don’t need you turning everything into a joke, not right now.”

Richie doesn’t have a snappy comeback. Something shifts when he speaks again. “You never asked me to stay. Even when I kept pushing you to uproot your life for me, you never told me to just forget about Sydney. Not once.”

“I wanted to,” Eddie confesses. “But I didn’t want to be the type of person who’d ask that of you.”

“Maybe you had it right. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted you to be that person, either. Who the hell knows.”

Eddie scrutinizes Richie. Richie keeps his eyes on the stoplight ahead of them.

“Either way, I’m returning the favor,” Richie says. “I won’t push this time. Not ‘cause I learned my lesson or anything, but because I’m not twenty-four anymore. Lord knows what I’ll be able to bounce back from, y’know?”

The light flickers green and Richie steps on the gas pedal.

-

Richie watches with open amusement as Eddie attempts to haul his luggage out of the car trunk. “So I’m meant to watch this display and not talk about other enormous things that you used to handle expertly. Am I doing this right?”

Eddie shoots him a dirty look that perishes faster than a mayfly. “We might just make a respectable adult of you before you turn fifty.”

“Ugh. You have my express permission to euthanize me before it comes to that.”

Eddie successfully retrieves his belongings and they land with a thump on the pavement. “Alright. Have a safe drive back. And good luck on your meeting on Thursday. Let me know how it goes.”

“Wouldn’t dream of holding out on you.” Richie’s smirk subsides into something genuine. “Hey, thanks for coming. It’s really happening, I’m really gonna make an offer to own a fucking house.”

“A fucking breathtaking house.” Eddie’s got an answering glow at the pit of his stomach for the one that’s lighting up Richie’s entire face. “Congratulations in advance.”

“Same to you, for when you shed that shitshow job of yours.”

There’s a beat that makes Eddie hold his breath, thinking that Richie might bring up his guestroom again.

No roundabout offer comes.

Eddie gulps down a treacherous pang of disappointment. He looks at Richie. He sees the tentative optimism that mingles with resignation. Beautiful but bittersweet. “I’ve missed you. Missed you so much.”

“ _Eddie_ ,” Richie breathes.

Eddie’s chest seizes at the raw ache telegraphed on Richie’s face. He’s overtaken by the urge to push himself up to his tiptoes and press a kiss onto Richie’s stubbled cheek.

Eddie lands back on his heels and steps back. He reprimands himself: this is neither the time nor place. The _person_ —

“Shit,” Eddie panics. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Richie’s response – to wrap his thick fingers around Eddie’s bicep and pin him to the car – is immediate.

“R-Rich?!”

Trapped between Richie’s lower half and his Ford Mustang, Eddie gets kissed full on the mouth.

Eddie valiantly attempts to restrict Richie’s access while he still has a remainder of wits about him. They’re set to expire any second, and it won’t be Eddie’s fault. Not when he’s arching backwards over a sports car, propped up by the man who found a home in Eddie’s heart and locked himself inside, refusing eviction. “In public. Shouldn’t.”

“If by that you mean we shouldn’t stop, then we’ve got no problems.” Richie lingers over Eddie’s lips so they snag as he speaks, before plundering them again and muffling Eddie’s muddled “what?”

Richie’s tongue flickers against Eddie’s bottom lip and pours the rest through, liquid curvature meeting Eddie’s in a dare. Their lips mold urgently, _greedily_ over one another, moving like they’re trying to devour the other one whole, trying to fuck each other’s mouths with their tongues.

Eddie can’t contain these staccato gasps like each delicious motion catches him by surprise. His hands scrabble over those wide boulder-pillows masquerading for shoulders. His thighs budge open for Richie’s until there are no more gaps for them to fight their way into.

It takes a traffic officer to break them apart.

It isn’t clear how long she’d been standing there, but she apparently needed to get close enough to rupture their eardrums. She uncharitably observes that they’re in everyone’s way.

The surroundings gradually puncture their touch-starved bubble and the cacophony of steady car honks makes it through to them. “Are they beeping at me? Quick, shut me up.” Richie leans in a fracture of an inch and Eddie brings a hand between them, muzzling Richie’s questing mouth.

“The time,” Eddie babbles without glancing at his wristwatch. He jerks his hand back when Richie purses his lips against Eddie’s palm. He pats Richie’s arm gently so it doesn’t read as a rejection. “I have to go.”

“You don’t, really.” Richie’s eyes widen as if his own words astound him.

After a couple of aborted efforts, Eddie manages to extract himself from Richie. “Drive safe, okay? I’ll text you when I land.”

-

Because fate is essentially a vengeful kick to the groin, a snowstorm is the very first thing that welcomes Eddie back to the East Coast. It’s precisely the right backdrop for a man logging into his work laptop in the dead of night.

While Eddie waits for the platform to finish processing data, he receives an instant message from Marty asking for a status update. His message isn’t even rude or terse, but it still stirs up a thunderous pulse along Eddie’s veins. Eddie all but claws his keys out as he maxes out on three-word replies.

He _really_ can’t do this anymore.

He’s going to make good on his promise to quit this time. He’s going to come in to work, and he’s going to hit the send button on the resignation later that’s been sitting in his drafts for upwards of a year.

He’s going to do it this time. The question that used to stop him before will no longer come out victorious. He will not balk at that ceaseless conundrum… “ _and then what?”_

Although he still doesn’t have all the answers at his disposal, it’s a little less daunting to confront that question now. And he’s already got a few ideas in mind.

Eddie wants to go back to way things were before. Not everything, but “before” is a broad template of what he wants his days to start looking like. What he wants them to start feeling like.

Back when goodbyes were only effective for three months tops.

Way back when friendship and proximity could be taken for granted as present and effortless.

Effort will have to change, but presence doesn’t have to. They’re still there – Eddie sees the parts of Richie, Bev, Mike, Bill, Ben, and Stan that were once shared with him in confidence. The parts of them that refuse to unlearn the love they’ve mastered, parts they’ve assimilated as muscle memory.

And he wants the parts he doesn’t know, too. The parts of their lives that he’s missed out on.

He wants to hear about the first time Stan held Zelda. To hear the worst thing Mike has to say about private schools and legacy students. He wants to support Beverly’s amplified causes, to winnow down the vestiges of Bill’s self-reproach, to urge Ben further out of his shadow.

Something in Eddie holds out hope that the new things he’ll find in them will find new places in his heart, too. There’s no way to be sure of it, but nothing will stop him from gathering information and gaining firsthand knowledge on the matter.

That’s what he does, after all.

When he thinks about it, that MO of his is the very thing that precipitated his and Richie’s break-up all those years ago. Eddie couldn’t get past the unknowable variables of Richie’s move to Australia, and Richie refused to so much as acknowledge them.

Those same inclinations could conceivably keep them apart now. Eddie will want to inspect each pro and con that a life in California entails. And Richie will want to gloss over them, will dismiss such an exercise as a waste of time.

It’s who they are. Eddie perceives threats that few others do, and it’s an ongoing battle not to let it debilitate him. Richie defangs potential dangers by discounting them, assigning them less power to hurt him.

But maybe, this time… they’re the same, but different.

Eddie thinks he needs his safety nets as much as Richie thinks he needs his crutch of humor. But this time, they’re working out those miscalculations.

This time, Eddie’s saying _I’ve missed you so much_ , with no caveats in sight.

This time, Richie’s saying _Lionel and Chance are made for each other_ , with no punchline on the horizon.

This time, they’re different, but they’re also the same.

Eddie reaches for the cassette player on his bedside table. He holds it in both hands and stares at it. For one untamed moment, he expects it to open up and uncover the mysteries of the universe with exoplanets to spare.

It doesn’t quite do that, but it does play a bunch of nice songs.

_Dream about the days to come, when I won’t have to leave alone._

Eddie swivels back to his computer. He closes out of his email software and opens a new tab on his browser.

-

**Richie**  
what’s this then  
not to get all goldilocks on you but you’re a little too late for valentines, little too early for my bday

**Eddie**  
Feel free to choose an occasion.

**Richie**  
well it’s a cassette tape so you’re clearly wooing me  
i know when someone’s overcorrecting for suppressed feelings  
one might say i’m familiar with the topic

**Eddie**  
That’s convenient.

**Richie**  
practically invented it tbh

**Richie**  
wtf  
you start with this song?

**Richie**  
a warning would’ve been nice  
fuck’s sake even i took the fucking time to write a tracklist

**Richie**  
do you hate me?  
want me to lie donw on the middle of the santa monica fwy?  
want me to leap into forest fires?  
is that what this is about?

**Richie**  
ok fuck you

**Richie**  
eds

**Eddie**  
*Eddie

**Richie**  
ED DIE

**Richie**  
if you’re fucking with me  
i want you and the nsa to know  
your taste in music is so inconsistent it should run for congress

**Richie**  
it’s done  
serious question  
be honest  
did someone else make this or did you seriously pass up the chance to add 4 seasons of loneliness?  
cuz if it’s the latter that’s some unexpected restraint on your part

**Eddie**  
If you’ve got something to say about my appreciation of Grammy-winning soul legends, you can say it to my face.  
I’m driving to California in three weeks.

**Richie**  
hagavhBAAA

**Eddie**  
Leaving on the 29th, getting there March 6th.

_Incoming call_  
**Richie Tozier**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tracklist for the mixtape is [on tumblr](https://hanlonging.tumblr.com/post/618384598480633856/leap-year-chapter-3-astrosaur-it-stephen) if you're curious!


	4. Spring 2020

Day five of his cross-country road trip brings Eddie to Colorado. The skies are clear, but snow still blankets the ground and the distant craggy crawl of the Rocky Mountains.

As majestic as the post-winter mountain ranges are, they aren’t the reason that Colorado was carved into Eddie’s itinerary. The sole reason for his pitstop is Mike, who’s in town to lecture at the University of Colorado.

Mike meets him at a low-profile Chilean restaurant a few miles out from the campus. It’s homey enough to be of interest to Mike and clean enough to keep Eddie’s knee-jerk reactions at bay.

Eddie hoards Mike’s life updates before the other can turn their lunch into a one-sided interview. He’d learned his lesson from two days ago, when Ben and Beverly devoted twenty-four hours armchair-therapizing his Los Angeles trip.

Mike indulges him. He scrolls through his camera roll, filled to the brim with Berbere and Paprika, his two dogs waiting from him back in Boston. Eddie savors the new photos that Mike’s taken since Thanksgiving.

Mike also opens up about his frustrations at his university. He’s not a fan of the daily microaggressions, nor the politics in academia. He describes it as harrowing and prone to dramatics, “to the point that the primary elections pale in comparison”.

This gets them talking about Eddie’s workplace, too – his _former one_. It was liberating to walk away from the firm. At the same time, Eddie wishes he had more to show for the length of time he’s served. Over ten years and he’s got no references and no transferable skills to show for it.

Mike takes umbrage to at least one of those points. “No skills? You’re driving from one end of the country to the other, with no one to take over for you if you get tired.”

“Am I supposed to put that on my resume? What does it qualify me for? A FedEx truck driver,” Eddie answers his own question. He considers it. “I don’t want be on the road that long, do I?”

“I’m not saying, ‘be a trucker’. I’m saying, forget predictive models. Those aren’t what made you good at your job,” Mike says. “Computer software didn’t give you the courage to pack up your life and start again with a clean slate. That didn’t power you to drive 3,000 miles coast-to-coast, singlehandedly, in one week.”

“I could’ve done it in six days had I not spent a day with Bev and Ben,” Eddie says, not to brag, but… okay, maybe to brag _a little_. He’s proud of the resilience that’s always been in his arsenal. But his full-speed pace wasn’t about proving himself. “I didn’t want to drag it out, that’s all.”

Mike hums low in his throat. “I’m assuming you told Richie to go to hell when he offered to keep you company?”

Eddie stares at Mike. “How did you…”

“Had a hunch.”

Eddie assesses the lowkey self-satisfaction surrounding Mike. It’s part and parcel of residing in the Boston area for too long. “Can I ask you something? Why did you send me that footage for my birthday?”

Mike takes a sip of his coffee. “I wouldn’t have sent it if I didn’t think you couldn’t handle it.”

Eddie preens a bit at that, posture lifting ever so subtly. “Still, it was a bit… callous?” He squints. “No, nothing that bad, more like… it kind of toed the line.”

“It might have,” Mike acknowledges. “I’m sorry if I overstepped. I guess I thought it had to be done. I can’t justify it other than saying…” He shrugs. “I was there. I watched these two kids chase each other all over Derry. And I watched them turn into adults, sort of, who chased each other into a rundown apartment in Boston. I know you guys think I know it all—”

“No, we think _you think_ you know it all,” Eddie corrects. “That’s why Stan named the group chat with the three of us ‘Google’s worst nightmares’.”

“He named us that because it was better than Richie’s suggestion.”

“Mike. Anything’s better than ‘reverse Oreo threesome’.”

Mike chuckles. “True. The point is, I _am_ aware that there’s a lot left for me to learn. But there are a few things that I’m certain of.”

“‘A few’, you say,” Eddie teases.

“Yes, a few. And one of those things has something to do with why Richie hasn’t had a serious relationship in twenty years,” Mike elaborates. “Why he’s been suspiciously quiet about those photos of him accosting an anonymous dark-haired man at the airport.”

Eddie fidgets and scratches the side of his nose. “It’s not like Richie’s rushing to confirm anything about those pictures, either.”

“Confirm anything to you or to everyone else? I’d say one of those things should happen before the other.”

After a beat, Eddie insists, “You don’t know everything. You _don’t_.”

“We’ve established that.” Mike says it like he means it, but he’s not fooling anyone.

Eddie desperately wants to bring Mike with him to California.

It’s not going to happen, of course. That’s okay. Eddie won’t tap out helplessly in the face of guaranteed physical distance – not this time. “I’ve been thinking about Stan and Ben’s questions that night at the reunion, when we hung around in the clubhouse. About why we drifted apart.”

“It made me think, too,” Mike says. “It made me think about what brought us together in the first place. We always said it was because we were outliers. There were things about us that others hated. Race, religion, orientation, weight. Abusive parents.”

“A speech disorder and a trashmouth,” Eddie rounds them out. “Losers assemble.”

Mike laughs. “Yeah. Well, we grew up, and some of us lost those things when we got older. It’s different for me, though, and for Stan. Probably Richie, too.”

“That’s a ‘definitely’ for Richie,” Eddie snorts. “But I don’t think we lost those things for good. Even with me and Bev and the others, we’re always going to be, like…”

“Outcomes of our history,” Mike supplies.

“Thanks, professor.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We’ll always carry that around. You know? For good or bad, it’s part of who we are.”

Mike nods. “Then I wonder if it isn’t unreasonable to say that this…” He clasps a hand over the back of Eddie’s fist. “…is part of who we are, too.”

“Yeah.” Eddie places his other hand on top of Mike’s. “You guys were always the one place where I belonged.”

“I think that goes for all of us,” Mike agrees solemnly. “We just have to do our best to not forget it.”

-

**Richie**  
there’s plenty you can do in la that’s not insurance  
they can involve cars if you want

**Eddie**  
Such as?  
Don’t say I can drive for Uber. I’m not giving random drunkards free rein of my backseat.

**Richie**  
car detailer….? that sounds like a thing  
park ranger?  
disney shuttle driver?

**Eddie**  
You think I can be a park ranger?

**Richie**  
fuck yeah  
and i’m not just saying that cos you’d look fucking cute in uniform  
and fucking delicious when i mess it up

**Eddie**  
Can you not fucking sext me in the middle of my career crisis? Thanks.  
Do you think it’d be enough to cover monthly payments?

**Richie**  
i don’t understand the question

**Eddie**  
Rich, we talked about this. I’m not sponging off of you.

**Richie**  
ok scrooge mcduck we’ll find you something lucrative  
how about  
car wash boy 🤤

**Eddie**  
Are you sure you know what lucrative means?

**Richie**  
sudsy eds in daisy dukes would make bank  
or

**Eddie**  
No. And who the fuck is Eds?

**Richie**  
sweaty, oiled up mechanic eds in grease monkey coveralls 😍💦👅🛠🥵

**Eddie**  
WHY do those emojis exist? What do they think we need those for?

**Richie**  
you can be my dedicated escort 😏😏😏

**Eddie**  
You mean chauffeur. Since we’re still talking about jobs involving cars. RIGHT?

**Richie**  
of course  
handling a stick-shift all day, i love that for you  
you can beep beep me whenever you want, wherever you want, as often as you want

**Eddie**  
SIRI BLOCK RICHIE TOZIER.

**Richie**  
if you don’t like escort, the redditors have some bright ideas for my mystery manlet  
like… sugar baby  
kept boy

**Eddie**  
MESSAGE FAILED  
JUST LIKE YOUR ATTEMPT AT ASSIMILATING INTO SOCIETY

**Richie**  
i did alright  
landed myself a trophy husband didn’t i

-

Spring isn’t as dramatic in California. It’s got nothing on New York’s intrusive bursts of color when April rolls around. Eddie wonders if he’ll miss that. Those fluorescent jolts of life that arrive like something you earned.

When Eddie pulls up to a familiar façade, Richie’s by his driveway, gesticulating grandly at his open garage. Eddie’s still killing the engine when he hears Richie rapping on the roof of his car, shouting something indistinguishable.

Eddie throws his door open and steps almost directly into Richie’s arms. It’s oddly surreal to hold onto Richie’s waist, like he’s still shaking off some dream he’d been having. Eddie is almost suffocated by his own affection when he feels Richie’s fingers trailing up and down his back, massaging each knob along his spine.

“Thank god my mail order chambermaid mechanic finally arrived,” Richie says.

Between the two of them, they heave Eddie’s sizable suitcases. Eddie already had half of his belonging delivered ahead of his trip, but Richie’s limited household inventory necessitated transporting more than he originally intended.

Eddie stows away most of his boxes in unobtrusive spaces, saving them for future unpacking. He ends up doing a bit of light spring cleaning while he’s at it, unable to ignore the dust uprising amassing in the corners of Richie’s home.

A cloud of tiny particles waft right into Eddie’s nostrils, making him sneeze three times in rapid succession. As soon as he thinks it’s over, another wave starts up again, bringing his total up to seven sneezes in about fifteen seconds.

He pinches his nose at the end of the onslaught, mildly exhausted. “Gah.”

Richie smushes his face it into the crook of his elbow, no doubt smudging his glasses. He groans wordlessly.

“Rich? What’s wrong?” Eddie asks.

“Why are you _like this_.”

“What? There’s dust everywhere, that’s not my fault.”

“No, why do you have to be so fucking _adorable_.”

“I am not—!” Eddie sputters. “I am a forty-year-old man.”

“My point exactly.”

Eddie throws his hands up to fill the void where a satisfying comeback should be. “I need a shower. Actually, I should unpack a bit, find some clothes and toiletries. Which room’s mine?”

For a moment, Richie channels Plato sizing up shadows on a cave. “Did you want your own?”

Eddie flushes. “You kept bringing up your guestroom before,” he says carefully.

“I did mention that a couple of times,” Richie certifies, just as careful. “Prior to certain information coming to light.”

“So what are you thinking?”

Richie’s face screams _you’re really making me do this?_ His words come out measured. “It’s come to my attention that a free room would work to our advantage. It could be an office for writing material. For studying in, if one should end up pursuing that online degree.”

Eddie melts at Richie referencing something he’d mentioned offhand. “That does sound sensible.”

“There’s also the matter of the guestroom not yet being furnished,” Richie admits sheepishly. “I mean, there’s a pull-out couch, but. My bed’s huge. It’s got to carry the weight of my dick, so, obviously. We can share it and still be in separate zip codes. If that’s your thing.”

“I didn’t pack up to California to be in different zip codes.” Eddie stills. There is precious little left of himself to expose and he has to curb the instinct to be protective of it. “Not that I expect you to let me stay here for good. I mean, unless- Well. I know we haven’t even talked about whether- In general, I mean, even if I found my own place later on, I’d—”

“Wait, what the fuck? I was just talking sleeping arrangements. No, you’re staying here,” Richie says. “Shut the fuck up, you’re staying right here.”

“Here with you?” Eddie asks softly.

“That’s right. You’re parking that perky little ass right here with me,” Richie confirms, leaving no room for discussion.

Unfortunately, they are due for more discussion. Eddie navigates mental minefields to get them there.

Richie whisks him away from them. “You look like you’re itching to wash Utah off. Go do what you’ve got to do first, we can talk about this afterwards. You’ve got my address.”

He does, in more ways than one.

-

Eddie feels more human in a fresh change of clothes and the faint scent of lavender in his hair. When he joins Richie in the couch, he’s told the three words he longs to hear: “You were right.”

“Of course I was,” Eddie automatically replies. “About what? Be more specific.”

“The long-distance thing wouldn’t have worked out,” Richie says. “Not with how much you need to have your daily fix.”

“Something tells me I’m better off not asking for clarification.”

“Phone sex wouldn’t have been enough to tide you over. That’s why you’re here now, isn’t it?”

“Phone sex? Please tell me you weren’t really getting off while we were talking about communicable diseases.”

“Like you weren’t propositioning me with ‘cock-seed-up-my-cozies’ while I was down to my boxers.”

“It’s coccidioidomycosis, you know fully well what that is, and why the fuck were you half-naked when you were on the phone with me?”

“Whatever, I’m not about to be kink-shamed by the dude with a height fetish.”

“Okay, A- I do not have a fetish, and B- you do not get make to fun of something that you benefit from.” Eddie catches the pincer-like fingers that were honing in on one of his dimples. He pulls Richie’s roving hand down between them, securing his hold by interlacing their fingers.

“I was about to ask what ‘benefits’ you were referring to, but I’m starting to get an idea.” Richie tightens his grip on the hand that sneaked into his.

“I’m just holding your hand,” Eddie yelps, affronted.

Richie glances down. “That’s not where my hand is.”

Eddie doesn’t even realize that his _other_ hand had crept down to the edge of Richie’s shirt, acting on the anticipation of restored permission. He corrects its premature placement. “I didn’t come here to be the next Sandy,” he says emphatically.

Richie shakes his head. “That role’s been eliminated. There’s another opening you’re better suited for.” The grin returns in his voice, louder than ever before. “It’s wide open. Ready for the taking.” He drops his jaw and curls his tongue in mock-invitation, demonstrating his utter lack of subtlety.

“Why can’t you—” Eddie wants it in words. Plain, distilled words. “I want us to try again. I want that if you want it, too.”

Richie pretends to ponder over it. “That’s quite a dilemma. Move over, chicken-or-the-egg paradox.”

“You get one last chance to give me a straight and honest answer.”

“Do you want me to be straight or to be honest? Make up your mind.” At this point, even Richie’s visibly appalled that he’s balls deep in self-sabotage and unable to pull himself out of it.

“Well, it’s been fun.” Eddie jerks his hand back, but doesn’t put enough force to dislodge it from Richie’s. “Excuse me, I’ve got to repack my bags—”

“No, no, no, don’t.” Richie anchors Eddie, clamping a hand over his shoulder. His thumb dips into Eddie’s collarbone. “I’m yours. However you want. Don’t know how to be anything else.”

Eddie’s gaze catches on the fascinating bob of Richie’s Adams apple.

“And I want you to be mine,” Richie continues. “You should be mine. No third parties. At least until they’ve figured out how to clone one of us.” He drops a kiss on Eddie’s cheek, sweet enough to make anyone’s chest hurt. “That work for you?”

“There’s only one problem. I can’t give—” Eddie stumbles on his words when the hand on his shoulder skims along his side to splay over the top of his thigh. “I can’t give you what you already have.”

“Oh, you little—” Richie lets out a sigh of half-faked relief. “That was easy.”

Their abrupt laughter sounds like children’s. Their kisses smack like bubblegum on a sticky summer day, clumsy and earnest. Eddie feigns anger at being called easy, and they laugh some more.

It’s like the year restarts with a new resolution, unself-conscious and sincere. _Let’s work on this, let’s get this right as often as we can._

The smallest taste of a remembered sensation makes Eddie anxious for more. The kiss goes from languid to emphatic, and soon, it has him shivering at the dirtiness and openness of it.

They trade heavy, unfocused breaths that has Eddie dragging his palm over the front of Richie’s sweatpants. They harmonize on a shared gasp without breaking away from the heady kiss.

Eddie just about cuts the circulation off on one of Richie’s forearms when the latter tries to get them to their feet. Eddie makes his intentions clear when he sinks to his knees, making room for himself between Richie’s legs.

They get Richie’s sweats and boxers past his hips, working in tandem like they’re following choreography. Eddie doesn’t hesitate to slide both hands over those spread thighs once they’re available to him, savoring the feel of Richie’s skin and the flush right underneath it. The sheer elation of regaining the privilege to touch Richie is overwhelming.

“Hey.” Richie’s eyes are dark with arousal, but also searching. “Stop fantasizing about having two of me and focus on the one you’ve got right now.”

Eddie laughs, thrilled and free. “I think I’m good. One of you is already more than a handful.”

Richie waggles his eyebrows approvingly. Eddie puts a stop to it when he sinks his teeth into Richie’s upper thigh. He flattens his tongue over at the reddened patch, soothing the light sting.

“You fucking liar, you’d be gagging for it.” Richie is momentarily silenced when Eddie glances up at him through his eyelashes and reaches one hand underneath his shirt, seeking out a nipple amidst the thicket of body hair. He ducks his head under Richie’s shirt, replacing the pads of his fingers with his lips, wrangling a moan from Richie when he opens his mouth and swirls his tongue.

Eddie feels Richie’s hardness jab his sternum as he appreciates his chest. Richie places his knuckles on Eddie’s shoulder, nudging him downwards while brushing his thumb along Eddie’s neckline.

“Shows you who’s gagging for it.” Eddie muffles his own words by keeping his lips attached to Richie’s skin, not caring that they go unheard. Eddie wants to echo the sound Richie makes as he makes his open-mouthed glide down Richie’s bellybutton.

“It’s alright, I get it. It is hot, two of me at your disposal.” Richie’s wrecked look seamlessly slots into a leer. “I could fuck you while you fuck my mouth. I’d grind into you and choke on your pretty cock at the same time.”

Eddie’s restraint gives up on him once he’s given that mental image. He wastes no more time, taking Richie in his hand and into his mouth. He slides his lips down until he feels his throat protest, and looks up to meet Richie’s blown pupils.

Richie’s hips buck up, negotiating for more room in Eddie’s mouth. “Fuck. Or—ah, fuck. I’d fill your mouth while the other me takes you. Go deep at the same time. Give it to you just how you like it.”

Eddie grabs onto Richie’s knees, sitting on his heels and arching his back like there’s someone coming up behind him. Richie can’t hold back a few more errant snaps into the quickening drag of Eddie’s lips. Trembling fingers twine in Eddie’s hair.

The heat and the musk and the scorching gaze lead one of Eddie’s hands to slip down his own body, down to where he’s trying to rub against the material of his lounge pants out of desperation, until Richie catches him in the act.

“Don’t get yourself off,” Richie gasps, barely comprehensible between groans. “That’s my job.”

Eddie whines around Richie’s dick, making the other cry out for a completely different reason. He brings his hands back up and focuses his attention on Richie. He plants kisses over and around Richie's shaft before slipping him back into his mouth. Richie thrashes recklessly as Eddie bobs, and he jerks before he can get a warning out. Eddie swallows him down, and as harsh as it tastes, he can’t get enough it.

“Fuck.” Richie’s hips continue to stutter into Eddie’s warmth through the aftershocks. He pets the tumult of hair that had been pulled and wrung. “Sorry, sweetheart. I—”

Eddie sits next to Richie, shamelessly kicking off his bottoms. The twinge of pain in his knees barely count as an afterthought. “Rich, please. I’ll finish if you breathe on me at this point,” he admits shakily.

In an instant, Richie settles himself between Eddie’s knees. He grabs Eddie’s base and, despite the warning, takes his time running his tongue along Eddie’s dick. Eddie groans as his legs come up to plant his heels on the couch. Richie seizes the opportunity to snake his hands up behind Eddie’s thighs, locking him in place while he kneads the head with kiss-tender lips.

Eddie moans again when those lips open for him, fingers digging into the edges of the couch. It doesn’t take long for the visual of him sliding into Richie’s mouth to get him overheated, never mind the unrelenting suction around his cock. It’s too much when Richie wanders over his inner thighs and fondles his balls, and he’s fighting with his own sounds of pleasure to tell Richie that he’s close.

Richie pulls back to take Eddie in one hand, stroking him while keeping the tip pressed to his lips. Eddie’s eyes shut tightly as he finds his release under Richie’s ministrations, heels digging down to chase Richie’s touch. When he opens his eyes, his body spasms like it wants to get aroused again, intrigued by the evidence of his orgasm streaked over Richie’s cheek and jaw.

Richie grins as Eddie takes in the sight of him. “Knew you missed that.”

Eddie laughs, soft with exertion and fondness. “If you’re dead set on giving me more wrinkles, I get to mark you up, too.”

-

Eddie blinks his eyes open to rectangles of light stretching over an unfamiliar floor. He moves to kick the heavy blanket weighing down on him and is reasonably shocked when it yowls in response. His sleep-slowed brain takes a few minutes to register that it wasn’t the bedding protesting his act of violence.

“It hasn’t been a full day and you’re already kicking me out of the bed,” Richie complains.

“What time is it?” Eddie looks at Richie’s phone when the latter tilts it at him. “I can’t believe I slept in that late. My body clock’s not even on Pacific time yet.”

“Your body isn’t used to getting rocked by someone who knows it like I do. Don’t worry, we’ll work up to it again.”

Eddie throws an arm over Richie’s waist. “I was looking forward to waking you up.”

“Today of all days?” Richie asks, indignant.

“I didn’t say how I was going to wake you up.” Eddie presses his smile into Richie’s chest and turns it into a kiss. “Happy birthday, Richie.”

Richie tousles Eddie’s hair affectionately. “Saucy Spaghetti for breakfast. How’d I get so lucky?” He slips his knuckles below Eddie’s chin, tilting it up. He tries to go in for a kiss and is met with Eddie’s cheek instead. “I brushed my teeth. See?” He opens his mouth, expelling a gust of peppermint. He then sweeps a thumb over Eddie’s bottom lip, gently tugging down to peel at the seam. “Let me have those lips.”

“ _I_ haven’t brushed,” Eddie argues. “I’ll be fast.” He dots Richie’s jaw with a couple of close-mouthed pecks before leaping out of bed, avoiding the wheedling that’s sure to follow.

Eddie breezes past his morning routine, bypassing whatever can be postponed for later. When he bounds back into the bedroom, he finds Richie sitting up against the headboard. He’s got a pen in hand and at a notepad on his lap.

“What are you doing? Are you working?” Eddie berates as he settles in next to Richie.

“Since we aren’t making _out_ , I’m making _art_.” Richie moves his hand to reveal a crude depiction of two stick figures, their limbs forming an asymmetrical V between them. The figure on the left has medusa-style squiggles sprouting out the top of its head and two large squares where eyes should be. The one on the right, drawn distinctly smaller, has hair that curls at the tips. They exist within the bubble of a hulking outline of a heart.

Eddie snorts. “Good thing your dream wasn’t to be a cartoonist.”

“I can’t be a quadruple threat. I have to project some illusion of relatability.” Richie adds a few more curls on the ends of the smaller figure’s hair.

“My hair doesn’t do that.”

“Does too.” Richie twirls a lock of Eddie’s fringe between his index and middle finger, manually fashioning it to resemble his sketch. He flashes a triumphant grin. “You can cast aspersions on my artistic prowess all you want, but you can tell who these guys are.”

“Of course I can tell who they are. That’s me and your mom, right?”

Richie guffaws. “Hoisted by my own petard,” he emotes, unleashing his inner theater kid. He contemplates his masterpiece. “Magnifique, no? Can I post this? I’m going to post this.”

“Online?” Eddie asks dumbly. “You want the internet to know that you managed to fail at stick figures?”

“More like I want them to know that I’m in good hands today.” Richie adopts a cartoonish expression that’s nowhere near as funny as Eddie’s snickering might suggest. “I could be like, ‘he wanted me to draw him like one of my French girls’. Except funnier and less like I’m stuck in 1997.”

“You can do better,” Eddie agrees.

“Maybe, ‘for my birthday, I got myself a man that let me doodle him’. And like, ten thot emojis.”

“That’s worse on at least three different criteria.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to add at least fifteen emojis to show them I’m not kidding.”

“Rich, you know you don’t need to do this, right?” Eddie checks as Richie develops his mostly non-verbal caption. “You don’t owe this to the public, or to me.”

“You think I’m capsizing my career for you? That’s cute,” Richie teases lightly. There’s a pause before he sobers. “You know, not one person in Sydney knows about me. Isn’t that pathetic? Twelve fucking years living there. I didn’t let a single person see me.”

Eddie thinks back to his own life just before his high school reunion. What it was like to have nobody to turn to. He kisses Richie’s cheek, smoothing hair behind his ear. “I’m sorry. It sucks. It really fucking sucks.”

“If you thought America’s homophobic… then you’d be right, a hundred percent,” Richie says. “Australia wasn’t much better, is what I’m saying.”

“Has it changed since?” Eddie works to remove the panic from his voice and only keep the thoughtfulness. “I just want you to be sure. Have you talked about it with your family? Your manager?”

Richie shakes his head. “Those guys’ll be disgustingly happy for me, you know that. My family, not my manager. Fuck him. Besides, it’s a moot point at this stage. Seeing as I’ll be announcing my queer superhero series soon.”

“What?” Eddie studies the grin making inroads on Richie’s face. “You mean…”

Richie grabs his pecs and pushes them up. “I might move up to a C cup with the sweet Cartoon Network cash coming my way. What do you think?”

“Richie!” Eddie pounces, colliding into Richie’s space lips-first. “I knew you’d get it. You’re so fucking talented, so fucking smart,” he murmurs into Richie’s mouth, punctuating every other syllable with a lingering kiss.

“Fuck, okay, we are so going to circle back to this, but hold that thought for now.” Richie meets Eddie’s eyes. “Do you want a pseudonym? I doubt you want my Twitter feed showing up when potential employers google you.”

“Don’t add my surname, shitbrains.”

“Sorry, what? I didn’t hear anything after ‘Richie, you’re so fucking smart. You’re such a fucking genius, Richie, your brain’s almost as big as your dick’.” Richie’s never ever going to let that go, and Eddie is only half-irritated by that prospect. “Direct quote from Eds Last-Name-Redacted.”

Eddie relaxes into the sheets, burrowing when his head hits the pillow. He forms an invitation in his serene smile. “Spell out my actual name and maybe I won’t change my mind.”

“The sacrifices I make for this household.” Richie sighs. “Okay, last call. You’ve got five seconds to stop me. Five… four…” He mouths the rest of it. Instead of one, he leans down to claim Eddie’s lips before chucking his phone to the side.

In time, the facetiously innocent presses give way to an earnest kiss. “Stay,” Eddie says, mouth open and hot against Richie’s. He clings to Richie’s elbows which have locked on either side of him, boxing him in. “Don’t leave me.”

“You got it. You’ve got me, sweetheart.”

Eddie drinks in the ruddy cheeks above him, the shimmer of a reddened mouth parting around helpless gasps. “I love you. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like. No time has passed at all.”

“Yeah. It’s the same for me,” Richie rasps like he can only just bear it.

“Rich.” Eddie spreads his thighs to grant Richie more access. He digs out his straining cock, pulling it over the waistband of his underwear.

“Oh god.” Richie stares at Eddie swiping messily at his own erection, his other hand dragging his underwear down to his hipbones. “What do I do. Fuck you, you’re so hot I can’t think.”

Eddie tries to splay himself wider but he’s still caught in his underwear. He wriggles, frantic to get Richie closer, to have him everywhere. “Get the lube. Hurry.” A beat later, he adds, “And a condom.”

Richie obediently scrambles to gets up, leaving Eddie to himself. He uses his rapidly ebbing command of his body to get himself fully naked for Richie. He grips the base of his erection in an effort to stave the ache of it.

A chain of banging and crashing fills the room, then Richie is back, descending over Eddie. “Jesus fuck, you’re gonna kill me.” With slickened fingers, he reaches between Eddie’s legs and nudges past the opening he’s looking for, letting out another curse as the muscle clenches to invite him in.

They make equally needy noises as Richie stretches Eddie out. Eddie scrambles to get his arms around Richie’s shoulders, needing to hold on to something while Richie opens him up. “I can take another.” He rolls his hips, doing all he can to force more of Richie in. “Richie, stop fucking around.”

“You know what, it’s my birthday, but I can’t even complain.” Richie twists a second finger in, slowly and steadily up to the knuckle. Richie’s fingers crook and prod, hijacking Eddie’s words and turning them into mindless praise.

“I need you,” Eddie gasps.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” Richie shifts, mouth hovering over Eddie’s slack one.

“ _You_.” Eddie’s tongue darts out to trace Richie’s lips, giving him little kitten licks as he paws at Richie, shoving his hips tighter against his.

“What do you need from me?” Richie takes in greedy gulps of Eddie’s damp panting and lets the other taste him.

“You should be inside me. I can’t stand this anymore.” Eddie’s now fully licking into Richie’s mouth, needy and hungry as the head of Richie’s dick snubs at his entrance, stopping short. He’s ready to scream in frustration. “It’s been too long since someone fucked me as good as you do, Rich, please.”

Richie shoves his tongue past Eddie’s lips, mercifully silencing his embarrassing pleas.

It takes a couple of tries to get the condom out of the pack and onto Richie, neither of them having steady hands. When they’re done, Richie looms over Eddie, his eyes unblinking and seeping black.

Eddie inhales sharply when Richie prods past his instinctive resistance. He claws at Richie’s back as his body accommodates the all-too-slow intrusion. With their size difference, the first push is a process, even back when Eddie was more limber and taking Richie’s dick regularly.

“Alright?”

Eddie wants to ask Richie for more, but his moans take precedence over words. “Hnnnh,” he says in return, hoping it sounds like a yes.

Richie uses one hand to lightly stroke Eddie’s hips, then has to plant both hands on the mattress to brace himself. He moves very minutely, trembling with exertion from the small, tight gyrations to fit more of himself in.

“Still good?” Richie asks, sounding more out of breath even though Eddie’s the one panting like he needs a respirator.

“Fucking move or I’ll brain you,” Eddie slurs.

“You’re still good,” Richie answers for him.

Eddie groans as Richie dicks into him a bit further. He cants his hips to take Richie deeper, arms winding around him to lock him close. “Fuck, Rich, I missed this. I missed _you_.”

“Yeah, fuck, I’d give up everything for this.” Richie’s thrusts turn purposeful. He drops to one elbow and gets his one hand between Eddie and the mattress, lifting him just a little each time he drives in. His thumb brushes the slippery crease as he puts more power into his thrusts, starts to really fuck Eddie instead of just working his dick inside him. “Can’t believe I get to have you again.”

“Your cahh- it’s so.” Eddie can’t seem to breathe without moaning, sounds that try to imitate the shape of Richie’s name. “No one else – _uh_! No one else can make me feel like this.” His legs come up to wrap around Richie’s torso, ceding the control that he was conditioned to be selfish with.

Richie takes full advantage. “No one else. You take it like you were fucking _made for me_.”

“I was. You were made for me, too.” Eddie bucks up into Richie’s stomach, smearing the underside of his cock all over his partner.

“Fuck, you’re—” Richie chokes out.

“Keep going,” Eddie urges as another sluggish dribble spills out of him, coating Richie’s stomach. They kiss sloppily as Richie keeps pounding into Eddie. Eddie sighs and hiccups, overwhelmed. He’s so overcome with sensation that he isn’t sure if he’s on the cusp of an orgasm or if he’s actually in the middle of coming. “Your fucking _cock_ , Richie.”

“S-Should I pull out? I can finish with, like—” Richie begins.

“I wanna sit on it.”

A strangled breath takes hold of Richie. “Yeah, okay.” He eases himself out of Eddie’s body and drags himself up to a sitting position. “Your ride awaits.”

Even when disoriented by the ferocity of his want, fond laughter bubbles out of Eddie. He crawls over, perching himself back-to-chest on Richie’s lap. He sits on his heels and hitches himself up, sighing blissfully as he coaxes Richie in. He bears down until Richie reaches exactly where Eddie needs him, finding an angle makes him throws his head back.

Richie latches onto his neck, teeth and lips kneading the skin he finds there. “Feel good?”

“Yes,” Eddie sobs, moving Richie’s girth in and out of him. His hips undulate in brisk circles, fucking that indecently perfect spot inside him over and over against the head of Richie’s fat dick. “You’re so good, so good to me. Love you so much.” Eddie reaches behind him, fingers tangling in Richie’s hair. He turns his head to mold their lips together as he bounces on Richie’s lap.

Richie grabs his hips, grinding up, up, rough and unrelenting. “I love you. You have no idea. _You have no idea_.” He wraps a hand around Eddie and tugs, a slick blur over his length.

“So good. So much. So full—” Eddie’s cut off by a scream that’s ripped out of him, a primal sound like the pleasure is dismantling him. His cock twitches violently in Richie’s grip and he blindly laps at Richie’s mouth and chin.

“You’re shaking so bad, baby.” Richie flattens his large, tacky hand flattening over Eddie’s abdomen. He surges up, driving hard until he loses himself in one vicious thrust, Eddie’s clenching heat welcoming him in. “Eddie.” He indulges in their connection, pulling out a little less each time until he comes to a rest, buried to the hilt.

As the frenzy of their movements fade, they lean into one another for soft pecks, mingling their ragged exhales. “Acceptable birthday sex?”

“Not bad for the first round,” Richie decrees. “You should probably know that I’m never letting you leave here.”

“You better not,” Eddie threatens into Richie’s mouth.

-

There are five boxes on the screen.

One has Mike and his dog, Berbere. The latter is content and still, save for his whirring tail. His sister, Paprika, toddles back and forth into view, caught between her housemates and something equally compelling by the window.

Another box displays Beverly, cooing at Berbere and Paprika. Over her shoulder flitters sneak peeks of Ben, pacing around their kitchen as he checks on his vegan stew.

A third rectangle contains Bill and Audra, amusing themselves by changing their backgrounds. They swap out the hotel hallway from _The Shining_ to a field of zombies on the prowl. They pose like Audra’s feeding Bill to one of them.

Yet another shows Richie and Eddie, wearing twin quizzical expressions. They’re ogling the Uris square with merited suspicion.

Patty is donning reading glasses with Sharpie-darkened duct tape framing it. “Today, I stand before you as Richie Tozier,” she announces. “I of course have my very own Eddie Kaspbrak.” She gestures to Zelda, who’s got a purse hanging off of her waist, straps tied at the ends to fit like a belt.

“I’ll allow this because Patty’s the only one cool enough to impersonate me,” Richie says.

“Is that supposed to be a fanny pack on Zelda? Also, why isn’t Stan playing me?” Eddie wants to know.

“Of course it’s a fanny pack,” Richie answers for Stan. “And they had to preserve our height difference, obviously. It’s integral to our dynamic.”

“‘Cause it’s a metaphor for the relative sizes of our egos?”

“It’s a metaphor for the half-foot I have on you. Now stop questioning Stan and Pat’s directorial choices.”

“And since you conveniently asked why we’re in this get-up,” Patty interrupts them pointedly, “we are doing it as a tribute to you two on your anniversary.”

Richie blinks slowly. “What… anniversary?”

“Oh, is that today?” Bill checks the date on the screen he’s looking at. “You got together today?”

“How the hell did you guys remember that?” Eddie is aware of the day’s significance, of course. He spent all of yesterday practicing a Thai shrimp sauce recipe from one of Richie’s favorite haunts on Sunset Boulevard.

“Richie made me remind him every year,” Stan casually exposes his oldest friend.

Richie colors guiltily. “I remembered! I just wasn’t managing my ADHD back then!”

Eddie pats Richie’s knee to let him know he’s not bothered by the revelation in the least.

“Anyway, now that the balance in the universe has been restored and you two have gone back to tormenting each other, Patty and Zelda prepared a little something for the occasion.” Stan ducks out of view, giving up space for his wife and child.

“I’m ten-year-old Richie,” Patty says. “I’m so insecure about my masculinity that I freak out if Stan or Bill accidentally brush my shoulders. But I have no problem holding Eddie’s hand so that we don’t lose each other.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “At an empty crosswalk.”

“I see what’s happening,” Richie mutters as Eddie cackles at his boyfriend’s expense.

“I’m ten-year-old Eddie!” Zelda chirps. “I have crippling” — she squints into the distance — “ants-zai-tee about germs. But I have no problem sharing popsicles with Richie!”

It’s Richie’s turn to have a laugh at Eddie’s suffering. “The cold slows down bacterial growth!” Eddie insists. “Shut up, it’s not that funny!”

“Ten years later,” Patty powers through as if she hadn’t heard them. She tugs on a denim jacket that’s far more tailored than anything Richie would own. “Now, I’m twenty-years-old. I want to make people laugh. That means I have to go somewhere where no one can understand my accent.”

Patty shuts down Richie’s protests as she helps Zelda her into a fluorescent purple jacket. Eddie can remember the exact windbreaker that they’re trying to emulate with this costume change.

“I’m also twenty,” Zelda declares, “and I can now admit that I love Richie more than _anything_ in the world! I will give him _everything_ he wants! But I won’t listen to him when he tells me what that is!”

“Yikes, they are not pulling any punches,” Mike says. As if he’s one to talk.

Then, Patty places a pair of oversized shades and Zelda wears pink frames with frogs on the edges. They hold up a sign that says **_FOOTAGE NOT FOUND_**. The mother-daughter duo chorus, “We are Richie and Eddie at thirty-years-old. We ignored Stan’s emails during this time, so as far as he’s aware, we did not exist.”

Eddie and Richie take that one on the chin in complete silence. That one’s fair.

Patty takes off her sunglasses and grabs a paper cutout, shaped to look like a beard. She presses it down, adhering it around her mouth. “Despite my track record, I’ve made it into my forties. And again despite my track record, I’m still convinced that I can make people laugh. But none of that matters if I can’t make my Eds laugh.”

“Aw,” Ben coos.

Zelda wraps a red twist tie around her pinky finger, hearkening back to the ring that Eddie wore to their reunion. “I’m also in my forties, and I still love Richie more than _anything_ in the world! Yes, for some reason, I haven’t grown tired of Richie yet. I also haven’t grown, period. Oh well.”

“That’s a Richie-caliber joke, Stanley, I hope you know that,” Eddie says.

“Coming from you, that’s not an insult,” Stan tells him.

Stan joins his family on camera, taking one of Zelda’s hands in his. The Urises look at each other, mouth a countdown, and take a much-deserved bow.

“Brava! Bellissima!” Beverly cheers as she and Ben start a round of applause.

“I couldn’t have written a better ending myself, for whatever it’s worth,” Bill quips.

The pièce de résistance are the homemade signs. Patty holds up one up that says **_HAPPY_** , Zelda’s says **_ANNIVERSARY_** , and Stan’s ties it up nicely with **_RICK AND EGGY_**.

“Should we cancel the Seamless order?” Audra asks Bill.

“Hmm? Why?”

Audra grins. “Because the Urises just delivered an amazing roast.”

Even Eddie has to admit, “it was inspired.”

“Where’s everyone else’s anniversary gifts?” Richie demands. “Married and good-as-married friends, how about some relationship advice, since you’re all so fucking functional? Oh, Mike, love you, you can drop off now.”

“Shut up.” Eddie pinches Richie’s flank. “Mike, you are not dismissed.”

Mike rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Just so happens I do have advice,” he says. “Make sure to get on your partner’s will _before_ you kill each other. Secure those property rights, Eddie.”

Eddie salutes. “Will do, professor.”

No one else, legally married or otherwise, feels qualified to lend counsel. For the most part, they only offer well wishes and requests to keep each other happy.

It’s sweet, if not necessarily helpful.

Later, Richie and Eddie will end their call, no more educated than when they started.

“‘Keep each other happy’. Thanks, guys, hadn’t thought of that,” one of them will scoff. “What about you, you got any tips for me? How am I supposed to keep you happy?”

The reply will be laughter, along with a heartfelt response. “Just keep me, dumbass.”


End file.
